


Ryūjin Sentai Goranger - Season 3: Episodes 1-11

by choriarty



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action & Romance, Crime Fighting, Fluff, Kidnapping, M/M, Plot, Secret Identity, Super Sentai AU, eventual pharmercy and mchanzo probably, i went full corny on this, new monster every week, no serious shit here, so much plot, this is basically super sentai and sailor moon crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2018-12-11 20:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11721924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/choriarty/pseuds/choriarty
Summary: ON THIS SEASON OF RYŪJIN SENTAI GORANGERThe city is rid of monsters once again thanks to theRyūjin Sentai Gorangers!Everything is peaceful as usual-- until a new face shows up right at Green Sentai's door! How will our heroes deal with the Shambali AmbassadorTekhartha Zenyattashowing up at almost every fight? Will they be able to protect the Ambassador from all of the new villains who want to kidnap him? Just who are the new group of bad guys that keep on showing up?And why does Green Sentai feel so drawn to Tekhartha Zenyatta...?





	1. Episode 1: Your New Neighbour

**Author's Note:**

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> cover by [mofu!!!](https://twitter.com/tastysakura?lang=en)
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> dont worry about seasons one and two, season three is the best one.

Zenyatta had assumed that the rumors of super heroes were nothing more than just that, rumors.

As his taxi sat in an intersection, which had been blocked by a car that was thrown in front of them, Zenyatta reorganized his internal files on what he knew of the city.

“Hey, don’t stick your head out--!!” the driver called as Zenyatta rolled down his window and leaned out of it. Perhaps his self preservation subroutines had been rerouted in order to prioritize his curiosity, but he could not help but think it would be worth it.

Storming and stomping down the street was a man that must have been over 10 feet tall-- if it could be called a man at all. Though it stood on two legs its head was that of a rhino and its torso was thicker than a car. Deep red metal armor covered every part of the monster other than its joints, elbows and knees visible as it bent down and picked up another car. The family inside of it screamed.

As the rhino was about to throw its improvised weapon there was a shout and flying out of nowhere came a flash of green. It collided with the monster’s face and it roared in pain, dropping the van back onto solid ground. The green blur landed perfectly on its feet and, for the second that it was still, Zenyatta was able to record an image of what it looked like exactly.

It had been a man, more of a man than the monster as it was average human height, but calling it just a man would be underselling it. He had been garbed in green armor, polished to a shine until the sun made it sparkle. The design was one of a kind-- through all of Zenyatta’s travels he had never seen anything like it. Even the helmet was eye-catching with a large V pointing towards the middle of his face. 

And then the man had jumped away again, crying out as he unsheathed a sword from his back and brandished it confidently. Zenyatta was barely able to catch a white scarf streaking behind him before the car started moving again. The momentum made him sway and hold onto the taxi as he quickly slipped back inside.

“Traffic is gonna be hell tonight,” the driver muttered, face a perfect painting of mild annoyance as she swerved around debris.

“What-- what was that?” Zenyatta asked and leaned between the two front seats in excitement. 

“Oh yeah, you’re not from around here are you?” the driver said. “Happens all the time. At least it looks like they got there early enough to cut back on the damage.”

“‘All the time’…? I had heard-- but it sounded so impossible… I did not believe it.”

“Believe it, buddy, cause it’s real. Our city here has the longest shopping district, is third in seafood export, and first in monster attacks and superheroes.”

Zenyatta scanned the driver’s face for any kind of tic, a hint that she was trying to pull his leg, but the only thing she betrayed was her annoyance. He sat back in his seat, back softly thumping against it, and he let himself sort through the new flood of information that he had received. His core common sense flashed red and tried to deny it, which normally Zenyatta would let it do, but he was forced to go around it. 

One last time Zenyatta turned around and looked back. Through the small, dirty back window he could barely pick out the monster. As the taxi turned a corner he was just able to register several other colourful blurs fighting.

“Superheroes…” he murmured.

Perhaps his stay here would not be as monotonous as he had thought.

= = = = =

The Shimada castle was just as, if not more, magnificent as the pamphlets described.

It was a beautiful piece of architecture that had survived the centuries. Just a year before, the descendants of the original Shimada Clan had funded and finished renovations on the grounds. Since it still belonged to them it also served as their place of residence. 

According to the brochure, there were tours of the palace every Saturday.

As soon as Zenyatta stepped out of his taxi in front of the large gates he was swarmed by guards. Within the amount of time it took to open his mouth and ask what was going on: a guard had popped open the trunk and taken out his luggage, another guard leaned over the driver’s side window and slipped in a few bills, and the last one flipped open his phone and began speaking (Zenyatta didn’t even see him dial a number). The luggage carrier tried to take Zenyatta’s carry on but he held tight and insisted that he could take it.

Then the car was gone and the gates were opening. Behind it were more guards all wearing the same impeccable black suits, the only ones not wearing sunglasses were the omnic guards, who instead wore faceplates that were oni-like and intimidating. 

From behind the entourage walked out the man who was obviously in charge. Standing just as tall as Zenyatta, the man wore a navy suit with the jacket open and top button undone, while his hair was a fashionable undercut samurai bun accented by stylist facial hair.

“Welcome to my estate, and more importantly our city, Tekhartha Zenyatta,” the man bowed. 

“It is an honour to be here and represent my brothers and sisters,” Zenyatta bowed in turn. “Though I must admit, I did not expect the roof over my head to be so extravagant.”

A twitch of his lips, the hint of a smirk. “Months ago it would not have been. You have arrived just in time. My name is Shimada Hanzo, and I am one of your hosts for the duration of your stay.”

“Ah, Shimada, I’ve heard that before,” Zenyatta hummed. “I was told that there was a Shimada on the city council.”

“That is correct. We’ll be working together frequently, it seems.”

“Hopefully not right away. I would rather enjoy the small calm before the storm of business. I’ve only just landed.”

A real chuckle came from Hanzo that time, “Understandable. One must take advantage of life’s few pauses.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

Hanzo nodded and then turned to one of his staff members. Without a word the man with Zenyatta’s bags walked past and held out his hand. “I will have your things brought to your room.”

Zenyatta wanted to protest, there was no need for someone to be burdened by his luggage, but he held back. Hanzo seemed intent on being the perfect and most formal host there was.

Behind the gates was more beautiful, if it was possible. A large rock garden sat in the centre of the entrance area and just past it was a large and ornate bell. Raised wooden pathways circled the garden so that it would not be disturbed, one big rock sitting in the middle by itself. Zenyatta followed Hanzo towards a second gate that opened into another garden, this one covered in greens. Large sakura towered over the courtyard and covered almost every inch of ground except for the cement sheltered by the single gazebo. 

“Have you seen much of the city yet?” Hanzo asked politely as they entered the main palace.

“Not yet. I came here directly from the airport-- although,” Zenyatta admitted. “I did end up taking a detour when a large man that looked like a rhinoceros appeared.”

Hanzo snapped his gaze behind him to look… strangely, at Zenyatta. Did he sound silly saying such a thing? Zenyatta had assumed that it was commonplace from what his taxi driver said, but if that was not so…

“Ah,” Hanzo said with an air of fatigue. “Then I suppose you saw those heroes, too.”

“Just one.”

“And what colour was it?”

“Green.”

Another look flashed across Hanzo’s face, too fast for Zenyatta’s processors to catch. “Green Sentai… he does seem to show up most of the time.”

“Is that what he is called? ‘Green Sentai’?” Zenyatta asked. “And you say there are others?”

“I believe that there are five of them, in total. Various colours.”

“I'm amazed at how… casual you sound about it. I assume this is all normal for you then?”

“Very normal,” Hanzo said. “But we've gotten off track. I'm supposed to show you around before I leave for my meeting.”

“If you are truly short on time, I am perfectly able to wait. I would not want to make you late.”

“Nonsense, what kind of host would I be if--” Hanzo was interrupted by an abrupt bang as one of the doors swung open. There was a stranger standing in the doorway, frozen in an almost comical tableau as they realized how loud of a sound they had made in front of people. However, the very first thing Zenyatta noticed about the stranger was their wonderful looking hair. 

“There you are,” Hanzo said to them. “What took you so long?”

The stranger grimaced, their face and clothes drenched in sweat and their posture slumped with exhaustion. “Do you really wanna do this right now, aniki? Right here?”

“I don't know, Genji. Should I?”

“Stop answering questions with questions!” Genji whined. “I managed to get the day off, all I wanna do now is take a nap.”

Hanzo raised an eyebrow. “If you have that much free time, then perhaps you can show our new guest around while I actually go to work.”

“What?! You can't just dump this on me after--” Genji choked on his own words when he finally looked behind his brother and saw the guest in question. His eyes glued to Zenyatta’s face plate, flicked down his body, and then returned back to the top. His eye twinkle. 

“Hm, yeah. I can take this, aniki. Don't worry,” Genji said, although he was not looking at Hanzo at all. 

A chill travelled up Hanzo’s spine as his ‘little brother getting into trouble’ senses went off. He studied the new expression Genji wore for a second before he made a disgusted noise. 

“Nevermind. Go sleep, I will show him around.”

“No, no, no… You said that I should do it because I am free, which I am; and implied that you're in a rush, which you are. I'll take care of this.”

“Genji. No.”

“Whaaat? I'm just showing him around. Why did you change your mind so suddenly?”

Hanzo glared at Genji hard enough to bore holes into him. “You better not be thinking of what I think you are.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Genji purred and, to Zenyatta’s surprise, slipped his arm around his shoulders. Zenyatta could feel the shape of Genji’s arms through his sleeves, especially when he slightly squeezed Zenyatta closer to his side. “Go on, go to the meeting! I'll show him around, I'll even be the best most gracious host there has ever been!”

Hanzo gave his brother one last scathing look (most likely using the infamous ‘telepathic sibling bond’ to warn Genji with his mind that he better not mess this up by sexually harassing the Shambali Emissary), quietly hissing something to him before he left the room. Even after he was gone Genji kept his arm draped over Zenyatta’s shoulders for just a moment before releasing him.

“So you’re our guest, huh? The Shambali representative? I’m Shimada Genji,” he bowed politely.

“A pleasure, Mr. Shimada. I am Tekhartha Zenyatta.”

Genji grimaced. “Eugh-- Please, don’t call me ‘Mr. Shimada’, that’s my brother. Just call me Genji.”

“Genji it is,” Zenyatta said. “And you may call me Zenyatta.”

“Zenyatta,” Genji rolled it off of his tongue, the smallest smile tugging at his mouth. “Let’s start the tour now, before the mosquitoes come out. It might not be too much of a problem for you, but I always get eaten alive.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” Zenyatta hummed.

If Zenyatta had thought that the parts of the estate he had seen before were beautiful, then the interior was indescribable. Truly it had earned its title as a ‘palace’ with all of the well restored art pieces and maintained structure. Even the areas with less traffic were still better than most of the rooms at the temple.

“Do people often tell you that your home is beautiful?” Zenyatta asked along the tour.

“Yeah, usually groups of tourists when we let them in for the day.”

“You invite tourists into your home?”

“Technically, it’s also heritage property. We just keep our rooms off-limits. Hanzo and I live here, but it was passed onto us just a decade ago. It’d be shitty if we closed it off to the people. Besides, we don’t need an entire palace to ourselves; this place is huge.”

“Mm, that is similar to my home. The temple is open to the public; tourists and spiritual-seekers alike, but we still live there.”

“Hey, it means that you’ll feel right at home here!” Genji grinned. 

“Perhaps I will,” Zenyatta replied in a warm tone.

“At least you won’t make the same mistakes I did. In the beginning I kept forgetting that people would be walking around, and I got caught wearing only boxers.”

Zenyatta chuckled, “I hope that you did not get in trouble.”

“Aniki pulled my ear a bunch, so now I remember to wear pants around the house.”

“How did the… ‘witness’ react?”

“She was an obaasan,” Genji turned a bit pinker. “I felt really bad. It it was anyone else I could own it and be smooth, but with her…”

“I’m sure that you would have been able to ‘smooth’ talk out of it either way.”

Genji glanced at Zenyatta, something gleaming in his eyes too quickly to catch. “Oh? How would you have reacted if you ran into a naked man during a tour?”

“You have already said you were not naked,” Zenyatta hummed. “And if it was _you_ that I ran into, I do not think I would mind very much.”

“Is that so? I’ll keep that in mind,” a cat-like grin creeped over Genji’s face. “Maybe it’s a bad thing that you’re used to this environment… Now everyone will be deprived of the chance to see you dressed down.”

“‘Everyone’?”

“Maybe not _every_ one, just one in particular.”

“Hm… I wonder who you are referring to.”

“Who knows?” Genji’s smile grew impossibly wider and he winked.

Zenyatta diverted some of his CPU to his cooling systems so that Genji would not have to hear his fans turn on.

The rest of the tour went similarly and passed in a flash. He had known that time was an illusion, but truly that afternoon must have been a prime example. It was only thanks to his passive recording abilities that Zenyatta had absorbed any of the tour at all; much less the important parts like where his room was.

The walk of the grounds came to a halt in front of the large front gates where Zenyatta had entered. Now he had the chance to see the beautiful rock gardens in the orange hue of twilight. He knew his home to be beautiful, but perhaps there may be some competition in that regard.

“Thank you for showing me around, Genji.”

“No problem,” Genji said. “And thank _you_ for coming to stay here. Living in a giant empty palace gets boring sometimes.”

“You could always walk around in boxers and scare a few visitors, I doubt life would be boring after that.”

Genji reeled back and laughed, his head tilted to the sky as he crossed his arms over his chest. Zenyatta wondered if music could be made with only one person, if a song could be sung by a single person with just their laughter. Zenyatta and every other omnic’s vocal processors were made to mimic those of a human… but it was always something else hearing the real thing.

Wiping a tear from his eye, Genji managed to calm down long enough to talk. “You’re not what I thought you would be.”

“And what did you think I would be?”

“I dunno… uptight? Boring? Hanzo is one of the city council members and I’ve met all of his work friends. It’s like trying to make conversation with stale bread. But you… you’re funny, clever, and friendly. You’re different.”

“That’s quite a compliment, and I’m happy to exceed your expectations,” Zenyatta said. “I’m happy to know that one of my hosts is so charming.”

There was something that crossed Genji’s eyes. “Hey… If you’re not busy tonight, do you wanna grab some d--”

Suddenly music blared from Genji’s back pocket and made both him and Zenyatta jump slightly. Immediately red burst over Genji’s cheeks and he began to fumble with his pants until he managed to pull out his cell phone. _‘Zenryoku BATANKYUU’_ obnoxiously played until Genji swiped the screen and answered, his brows furrowed with frustration and embarrassment. 

“What?! I’m trying to enjoy my day off!” he said. “You don’t get to pull me back after you promised I could--” Genji was cut off by the voice on the other line. It was loud enough to hear but not quite enough to understand. Slowly Genji’s shoulders slumped and he sighed.

“Fine, fine, I’ll be there.”

Zenyatta tilted his head curiously. “Is everything okay?”

“Huh? Oh, kind of. They want me to come in right now. So annoying,” Genji groaned. “And just when I was about to… nevermind. Hey, are you gonna be awake later? When do you usually start your charge cycle?”

“I will be awake for most of the night. Did you want something of me?”

“In a way,” Genji said. “I gotta go now, but there’s this really cool-looking restaurant for omnics a few blocks away, straight down the road. You should try it, I’ve heard good things.”

“Oh? And you were thinking of going with me?” Zenyatta asked smugly.

“Haha, maybe,” Genji laughed and turned a shade darker. “Doesn’t matter now though.”

Zenyatta couldn’t help but feel his chassis tighten at the sight of Genji pink and flustered. He could not have his ‘gracious host’ looking so down in the dumps, now could he? “What if I go ahead on my own, and when you get back tonight I can tell you how it was?”

There was half a second when Genji opened and closed his mouth like a surprised fish-- and then that sparkle returned back to his eye with a vengeance.

“Yeah! Yeah, that’d be great,” he said, almost dreamy. “I can’t wait.”

Goodbyes and well wishes were exchanged. Then Genji ran off back into the palace and Zenyatta watched him disappear.

There was the phantom feeling over the back of Zenyatta’s shoulders, it felt like an arm.

= = = = = || = = = = =

“Do you have a reservation?”

If Zenyatta could blink in surprise, surely he would at that moment. “I wasn’t aware one needed a reservation in order to eat here.”

The hostess, a matte gold omnic with long legs and a feminine voice, sighed and leaned on her podium. To her credit she actually looked sorry about it. “Normally we don’t, but today we’re absolutely packed. I can write down your name and number if you want and we’ll call you when a table is ready.”

“How long will the wait be?”

“The longest it’s taken is an hour, but the dinner rush is starting to slow down so it’ll probably be faster than that.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem. It will give me lots of time to explore the shops around here.”

The hostess perked up and pulled out a pen. “So what name will you be using?”

“Zenyatta. Tekhartha Zenyatta.”

Before her pen touched the paper there came a voice from within the restaurant, “Zenyatta? Did you say Zenyatta?”

An omnic stood up from their table and power walked to the front of the house. Their LED face flashed through a few expressions until it settled on a surprised ‘:0’. They hopped little hops in excitement. “I know you! You’re one of the Shambali!”

“That I am,” Zenyatta nodded. 

The hostess was horrified. “Th-The Shambali!? Oh, I am so so sorry, I’ll find you a table right away--”

“Please, there is no need,” Zenyatta put up a hand and shook his head. “I am no more special than anyone else waiting tonight.”

“Sure, but…”

Then the other omnic spoke up again. “Come sit with us, we still have an empty seat at our table.”

“I would not want to impose.”

“I’m offering! Come on, I gotta introduce you to my friends.”

Zenyatta hesitantly followed the stranger, somewhat relaxing as he saw the hostess’ relieved posture. It was a large reason why he travelled without his robes. He did not want to give his brothers and sisters the idea that he was any better than them.

He was taken to a table by the window where three other omnics sat. They looked up as their friend approached and glanced in confusion between him and Zenyatta.

“Poe, who is this?” asked one, their voice extremely low. Almost too low to understand with the human ear.

‘Poe’ turned to Zenyatta and said “I’ll introduce you,” and then turned once more to the table. “Guys, this is Zenyatta. He’s a part of the Shambali.”

“Wait-- _the_ Shambali?!”

“Yup!” Poe popped the ‘p’. “Zenyatta, these are my friends…”

Once by one Poe named the omnics off to him. The omnic with the low voice was named Sunny and unlike most modern omnics he did not have many LED’s on his face, just one large light in the center that was the size of a fist. The next was Lizzy, a large construction worker model that looked to be fairly new; Zenyatta knew that only the most recent construction omnics had more than two arms. Lizzy had four. The last was a very, very small omnic around the size of a human child with polished white coating and large blue LED eyes that blinked with artificial eyelids. Her name was ‘Truck’.

“It’s a pleasure to meet all of you,” Zenyatta bowed. The three others looked at each other and then awkwardly bowed their heads in return.

“How did you find him?” Lizzy asked.

“He was waiting for a table at the front, so I said he could sit with us.”

“Of course he can!” Truck clapped happily in a child-like voice. “I’m such a big fan of the Shambali. What brings you all the way here? Aren’t you located in Nepal?”

“He’s probably here on vacation,” Sunny said. 

“Who would want to vacation here?” Truck grimaced. “With all the… y’know.”

“I dunno, the humans think all this monster stuff is cool.”

“Actually,” Zenyatta said. “I’m here on business.”

“What kind of business?”

“We have been speaking with representatives in different cities with the idea of encouraging the construction for places of meditation for omnics and humans alike.”

“That would be awesome,” Lizzy said in awe. “I would kill to be on that job.”

“So you’re here to ask for a deal?” Poe asked.

“No. A majority of the city council members have already agreed to building a temple here, I am here to help advise on where to place it and to promote it.”

“I don’t think you need to promote it to any of us,” Poe said. “I’m pretty sure that all of the omnics here would love a Shambali temple.”

“It’s more to promote it to the remaining city councillors.”

“Figures,” Truck grumbled.

“You guys take an oath against violence, right?” Lizzy asked. “If you ever need help or get into a tough spot, just us. Here-- lemme give you my number.”

“Me too!”

“Ah,” Zenyatta hesitated. “We do not take such an oath…”

“Yeah, but it never hurts to have friends. Gimme your phone!”

He knew that there was no point in denying them what they wanted. Once he handed his phone to Lizzy the others crowded around as close as possible in a competition to get it next. The sight made him smile; just a few years ago these omnics would most likely have been too scared to voice their support so loudly and enthusiastically. Watching potential friends bicker over his phone was not too bad.

“Okay! All done!” Poe chirped and happily handed the phone back. 

(Later Zenyatta would check his cell for the new contact numbers and find them easily. Each had added two or more emojis next to their name and stood out among the other names.)

“Quit stalling, Poe!” Truck demanded. “You’ve already made him wait long enough by taking a hundred years to introduce us.”

“Hey! Shut up!” Poe shot back playfully. Then he turned to Zenyatta and pulled out the open chair for him. “Do you know what you want? Have you ever been here before?”

Zenyatta took the seat offered to him next to the window. “This is my first time coming here, actually.”

“No way!” Truck said.

“You’ll like the dark chocolate oil,” said Sunny. “It’s my favourite.”

“If we’re going to show him our faves, then he needs to try coconut cream first!” argued Lizzy.

“Yeah right! Black licorice first!” Truck butted in.

“Well he can’t have any yet because we haven’t ordered!” Poe pointed out. “All we have is the free lemonade flavoured oil right now. The waitress should be over soon to take our orders, so try to go through the menu fast.”

“Don’t rush him!” Lizzy said. “We can wait a little longer.”

“Yeah but the longer we stall, the worse I feel about the other people waiting for a table.”

“We just got here, there’s nothing to feel bad about.”

As Poe and Lizzy bickered, Truck leaned to her side to whisper to Zenyatta and point at the menu. “This part is super expensive and not worth it, honestly. Sucks cause I know that the owners can’t really control what they buy it for from the manufacturers. The stuff down here is more local and better prices, but not as strong as the more expensive…”

Truck’s voice faded into the background. Something was pressing on Zenyatta, laying on his back like a mattress full of weights. The sounds melted away as he withdrew in on himself and tried to feel around for what was wrong. Something felt wrong, unnatural.

Something was coming.

A blast of discord punched Zenyatta directly in the chest and ripped him from his thoughts. On instinct he grabbed for the smaller omnic beside him and covered her with his body.

Just in time for all of the windows to explode.

There was screaming, high pitched static and panicked feedback, enough sound to threaten Zenyatta’s audio processors. His systems warned him that some of the glass had lodged itself in his parts but thankfully none of them were too threatening to his hardware. Once the ceiling had stopped shaking and the glass had finished falling like snowflakes from its frame, Zenyatta pulled back. Truck was staring up at him, her large blue eyes narrowed to dots with her artificial eyelids. Her small delicate hands had a death grip on his pristine white robes.

“Are you--?” Zenyatta’s concern was cut off by another loud sound, this time of a gun being fired. There were more screams, the sound of people trying to stand up and get away, chairs and tables being pushed out of the way.

 **“STOP WHERE YOU ARE!”** came a booming voice.

Right on cue, a flood of armed men stormed in from the front door and walked through what was left of the floor to ceiling windows. All of them wore various black masks and unmarked clothing, even their eyes were covered by tinted goggles. All of them immediately pointed their guns at the nearest omnic and there were more screams and wails for help.

“None of you move,” the source of the voice came in through the front door. It was a man-- if a man could grow to be so tall. He stood more than a head over the tallest gunman in the room and at least twice as wide. Covering his face was an opaque riot helmet that covered every inch of skin and matched the heavy armour he had on his body. Yet the most frightening thing was the gun he held. It was not as basic as the ones his henchmen owned, instead this one glowed with raw electricity. Zenyatta could taste it in the air from where he crouched.

The man clicked his tongue behind the helmet. “That’s it? None of you are gonna try to fight back? Come on, try it. I dare you.”

The large man stomped towards the nearest omnic and gripped its arm, ripping a scream from its throat as he dangled it in the air. “I’ll even give you a free shot. You’re not scared, are you?

But the omnic in his grip only shook in terror, their lights blinking on and off in morse code for ‘SOS’. Apparently even a moment of hesitation was too long for the assailant, as he frowned and threw the omnic to the ground.

“Fine, be that way,” he growled. “These jobs are never fun anymore. It was better when you tin cans had guns and we were allowed to do whatever we wanted to you.”

The giant slung his enormous gun over his shoulder like it was nothing more than a toy. “Now you’re all going to politely follow my men and file one by one into our trucks, no fussing and no yelling. Anyone makes a sound and you get a body full of taser. Any questions?”

Zenyatta’s hands flexed. Truck, who was watching him, whimpered and tugged at him in an attempt to keep Zenyatta from standing up. Quietly, gently, he pet her bright white head and then pried her from his robes.

All eyes turned to Zenyatta as he stood in the middle of the crowd. It must have been a sight, a single robotic monk standing among over an entire restaurant of cowering omnics as more than a dozen gunmen changed their target to him. Politely, he raised his hand.

“I do, though it is less of a question and more of an offer.”

The giant looked Zenyatta up and down, his body staying lax and lazy with the assumption that he was a simple monk. “Oh? This will be precious. Go ahead.”

“My name is Tekhartha Zenyatta, and I am an emissary of the Shambali.” Zenyatta bowed as was customary when introducing himself. “Please consider taking me instead. Many of these people are harmless, but I am considered very important. I would gladly come willingly if you leave them alone.”

“A Shambali, huh?” the giant grunted. “Yeah, you’re right. You are worth a lot.”

“So will you accept my offer?”

“Nah,” he laughed. “I can just take you _and_ all the others. Men, start herding them out.”

Zenyatta shook his head. “I was afraid you would say that.”

Before anyone could pull the trigger, Zenyatta flicked his wrist and one of the orbs around his neck flew off and hit a gunman directly in the face with a loud DING! All at once chaos erupted as the other omnics took their opportunity and made a break for it. The bigger ones followed Zenyatta’s lead and started taking down henchmen so that the smaller ones could escape. Lizzy clothes lined two of the taller gunmen and then, using her multiple arms, elbow dropped both of them. 

Most of the attention was on Zenyatta. His hands moved fast enough to give the illusion that he had multiple arms as he threw orb after orb at his attackers. Each landed hit made a pleasant chime despite what is was being used for. Bullets were easily deflected by rapidly orbiting balls or absorbed by the energy shield they made. 

“Call the Ryujin Sentai Gorangers!!” someone cried, though their location was lost within the chaos. 

Everything was looking up and for a moment there was the tiny spark of hope that the henchmen could be defeated by the omnics. 

There was the quietest crackle, a pop in the air, and then suddenly lightning exploded inside the room. Both omnics and grunts were hit and there were more screams. 

Then it stopped. 

“You're a troublemaker, aren't ya?” the giant whistled. Their large gun was smoking and sizzling. “I'd love to beat you to scrap, but that's gonna have to be another time. The boss wants you tincans alive, and I'm pretty sure you're worth even more.”

He hauled up a body from the floor and Zenyatta clenched his fists. Like a toy ragdoll, Poe dangled from the giant's hand. His face screen was full of fuzzy static and their neck was sparking at a frightening rate. Zenyatta could hear Lizzy yell from the other side of the room, could hear Sunny hold her back and try to reason with her.

“Now you’re gonna quit it with the games and come with me nice and quiet,” the giant grinned under his mask. “You’ve already lost me enough product with your little stunt. Hopefully you’re worth as much as you say, or else…”

Suddenly a battle cry filled the room, **“DRAGON _KIIIIIIICK!”_**

There was a bright green blur and a loud crunching sound as it collided with the giant’s head. Poe was dropped on the ground with a sickening thud and immediately his friends sprinted to him. Zenyatta looked to the fight.

He knew that man, he knew that armour and that helmet. He had recorded it and filed it away in his memories this morning. Just like that the scene in the middle of the street with the rhino monster and the same exact man flashed through his mind.

The giant man roared and Zenyatta could see parts of his face and a glimpse of long teeth where the riot gear helmet had been shattered. _“You!_ I’ll destroy you!”

But when the giant swung out, the green hero was already gone. He growled as something hit him in the back and exploded, barely affecting him at all. With a grunt he lifted his large gun and aimed it at the person in the corner of the room who had fired at him. They wore armour just like the green hero, but instead it was red and had a more practical chestplate with a headset on the side of their helmet.

“Don’t get distracted now,” came a voice and immediately after there was a bright flash and a bang. The giant hissed and covered his eyes just long enough for a yellow hero to roll out of the shadows and rapid fire their gun six times in less than the blink of an eye. Their bright yellow colour and popped collar paired with a white scarf made them pop out from the background like a beacon.

In a blind rage, the monster tried to take out at least one of them before he went down. He lunged at a speed that seemed impossible for something so big and caught the yellow hero in the middle of escaping. Just as it raised his gun to smash it against its prey, there was the quietest sound, like a whip in the air. The giant froze where it stood, swayed once, and then fell face first to the ground. A blue arrow stuck out of its back.

“That’s some timing,” the yellow hero whistled and stood up, brushing the dust from his pants. “Could’a used you a few second earlier, though.”

A blue hero fell from the rafter and landed without a sound. He scoffed and shouldered the beautiful bow he held. “You are fine, don’t complain.”

The green one-- the one Zenyatta knew-- finished up with punching out the last grunt before skipping towards the others. “I dunno, kinda seems like you were waiting for the perfect moment to ‘heroically’ rescue him.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the blue hero.

The red one stepped off of her perch and scanned the room. “All clear here. You’re good to go, White Sentai.”

“Thank you, Red Sentai,” came a significantly higher female voice. There was the creaking of the wooden rafters above and then a white hero hopped off, slowly descending as if they had wings. In their hands was a long white stave. “The police should be on their way soon.”

“Perfect! Good job, team,” ‘Red Sentai’ announced and clapped Yellow Sentai on the back hard enough to make him cough.

“This hardly needed all of us,” said Blue Sentai. “One or two would have sufficed.”

“Perhaps, but that is only because we didn’t expect half of the bad guys to be taken out by the time we got here.”

“Yeah, what happened?”

Zenyatta made an artificial cough to attract their attention. “That is mostly my doing.”

All five of the heroes stared at him in disbelief. “A… A monk?”

“Hey!” Truck stomped over and pointed an aggressive finger at the heroes. “Don’t judge him based on his looks! Zenyatta saved my life!”

“And fought off most of the gunmen,” said Sunny.

Red Sentai looked at her teammates, around the room, and then back at Zenyatta. “Is this true?”

“Ah, they may be exaggerating a tad. I only scuffled with a few of them.”

“It looks like more than a few to me,” said the Green Sentai. Zenyatta’s gaze immediately locked on him and his visual processors compared the hero in the flesh to the snapshot in his memory banks. Definitely the same man. “What kind of guns are you packing under those robes of yours?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Red Sentai cut in. “Your name is Zenyatta, yes?”

“Correct.”

“I have not seen you here before. Am I correct to presume that you are the same ‘Zenyatta’ that was supposed to arrive from Nepal today?”

“You would be, though I may wonder how you knew such a thing.”

“It is our job to know everything that goes on in our city. You are the Shambali Emissary.”

Zenyatta nodded.

“It was irresponsible of you to start a fight,” Red Sentai said bluntly. “You may know how to defend yourself, but starting a brawl could have involved those who cannot. Someone weaker than you could have been hurt. Not to mention your important position. What would happen if you were to be hurt on your first day here?”

Zenyatta tilted his head. “I must apologize, but I am unfamiliar with both who you are and why you think you are in a position to judge my actions.”

The red hero straightened in surprise (while green and yellow elbowed each other and snickered). “That’s right, you’re not from around here. It is my fault for not introducing ourselves. We are the Ryūjin Sentai Gorangers, and we protect this city. I am Red Sentai.”

“I’m Yellow Sentai,” he said.

“Blue Sentai,” he bowed slightly.

“I am White Sentai,” she waved.

The last one did not speak right away. Instead, he seemed to be studying Zenyatta and taking in the entire picture. At last he cocked his head and saluted playfully with two fingers. “Green Sentai, at your service.”

Red Sentai nodded once they were all done. “I acknowledge and thank you for standing up and fighting for the people here, but I cannot take back what I said about it being irresponsible. Someone could have gotten hurt.”

“Someone would have gotten hurt whether or not I fought back,” Zenyatta said. “Is it not better to stand up and try to protect others when things seem bleak, than sitting quietly and letting people be taken?”

Red Sentai said nothing. Zenyatta could feel her stare from behind the helmet, the emotions rolling off of her in waves. 

“But I understand. I agree that someone could have gotten hurt; however, when calculating the risk versus the inevitable, I chose to fight.”

There came a sigh from within the helmet. “It was noble of you, but please do try to be more careful.”

“I will take that into consideration the next time that a nine foot man with a large gun comes into the place I am eating.”

Red Sentai laughed quietly. “It happens more than you think.”

And on that note the conversation was over. White Sentai crouched down next to those who were involved with the fight and, with a tap of her staff, healed them. One of the first that she went to was Poe. With almost zero effort his systems came back online and his screen flickered on. Zenyatta watched his friends pile on him in a huge hug, and knew he had made the right choice.

“Hey,” someone said to Zenyatta’s left. When he turned he could see that it was Green Sentai, and he was much closer than he had been before. “Don’t worry about her. Red Sentai is mean because she cares.”

“I can tell,” Zenyatta said.

“So… all of this was really you?”

“Some of it.”

“How much?”

“Most of it.”

Green Sentai whistled and put his hands on his hips. “That’s amazing. You might give us a run for our money if you keep playing hero.”

Zenyatta chuckled. “I have no plan to purposefully seek out trouble.”

“Good. Were you hurt? White Sentai can…”

“I am perfectly fine. Nothing that needs immediate attention.”

“‘Immediate’? So you are hurt?”

“Some of the glass from the windows got lodged in my circuits, but it is nothing that I cannot fix myself.”

Green Sentai huffed, though Zenyatta could hear the smile in his voice through the helmet. “You really are something else, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“It might have been kind of foolish taking on a room full of arms baddies, but it was also very brave of you.”

Zenyatta pressed his fingers together and absolutely beamed with pride. “Thank you. I agree.”

“Next time try to stay safe maybe. We wouldn’t want that pretty faceplate of your to get scuffed up, now would we?”

“I’ll think about it,” Zenyatta chuckled.

Red and blue lights could be seen reflecting on the broken glass from a distance away, sirens getting more clear with each passing second. Yet neither Green Sentai nor Zenyatta took their eyes off of each other. Zenyatta felt as if he was caught in a spider’s web.

Perhaps such a thing was not so bad.

“I gotta go,” Green Sentai said.

“Stay safe,” Zenyatta responded.

He watched from the ground as all of the sentai jumped off with seemingly superhuman strength and speed, disappearing into the dimming evening sky. Just outside came the sound of cars hitting the brakes and doors opening and closing. There was a background static of police and omnics talking, asking what happened.

Zenyatta files his new information into one of the forefront folders of his memory. There was quite a lot to go through after just one day.

He had a feeling that his stay here would be more exciting than he anticipated.


	2. Episode 2: We Meet Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta can't seem to stay out of trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops missed the update schedule by a day. but hey i was having a party so i was p busy. shrug emoji?

“Less than 24 hours since you stepped off the plane and already you’ve attracted trouble.”

“To be fair,” Zenyatta said. “Me being there was entirely a coincidence.”

“And yet still I am not reassured,” Mondatta sighed over the video call. “I knew this was a bad idea. I'm getting you on the next flight back immediately.”

“Brother... please,” Zenyatta groaned. “Don't be so dramatic.”

“I am exhibiting the perfect amount of drama for a situation such as this one.”

“I disagree.”

“Your taxi was attacked by a monster and when you went for dinner you were almost taken hostage.”

“My taxi was not attacked! It was near the area that was attacked; and I was not taken prisoner.”

“You could have been.”

“It does no good to dwell on ‘what if’s’.”

There was a pause as Mondatta’s jieba flickered like he was blinking in shock, and then came a long sigh. He had no true nose to pinch but it was a more human habit that Mondatta had picked up. “You are making me wonder how you’ve managed to stay alive this long, with a sense of self-preservation like that.”

“I have a reasonable self preservation to curiosity ratio.”

“Please-- adjust your sarcasm modules by a few decibels. I’m trying to be serious now.”

Zenyatta watched his brother’s face through the screen before nodding. “Consider it adjusted.”

“Thank you,” Mondatta sighed. “I see now that my worry has come across as an impulse to control you, and for that I apologize. I wish only for your safety-- and to hear that such things are happening, right after last year’s…”

“Oh, Mondatta,” Zenyatta murmured. “Yes, I understand, but we cannot hide in the shadows forever. We would be doing exactly what they wanted.”

“It is not ‘hiding in the shadows’. It’s called playing it safe. No one would judge you if you came home.”

“We talked about this before I left, brother.”

“Yes, but now things have changed because of the monsters and--”

“Nothing has changed. I am in just as much danger as I was before; perhaps even less so with a group of superheroes protecting the city.”

Mondatta took a deep artificial breath and let out a long artificial sight, just to make a point of how fed up he was with the entire situation and with Zenyatta himself. “Tell me, do you feel that you need to stay there?”

“Yes,” Zenyatta replied.

“And do you _want_ to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have no authority to force you to leave. Just promise me that you will stay safe. I don’t think I could handle another one of the stunts you pulled in April.”

“April Fool’s is an old human tradition that--”

_“Zenyatta.”_

“I promise to stay safe.”

“That will have to be good enough for me,” Mondatta said. “Now you should hang up, before I change my mind and drag you back here myself.”

“Thank you,” Zenyatta said. “For trusting me.”

“There was never any doubt,” Mondatta said. “It is only the rest of the world which I do not trust.”

 

= = = = =

 

Zenyatta had been feeling drained after yesterday evening and all of the post-adventure police questioning that came after it. Yet somehow, after his talk with Mondatta, he felt refreshed and ready for a new day in his new strange city. He picked up the pair of sandals that he planned to wear and carried them to the front entrance of the inner palace. Just as he slipped them on in the large entrance foyer, there was the sound of more unseen doors opening and closing. Genji and Hanzo Shimada stepped out of the hall.

“Good morning,” Hanzo said.

“Good morning to you as well,” Zenyatta nodded.

“Are you going out?” Genji asked.

“Yes. I plan to explore the shopping district before the rush hour.”

“Where is your entourage?” 

“I do not have one.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Genji scoffed. “Of course you have one. Am I use the wrong word? Bodyguards? Security?”

“No, you are using the correct word,” Hanzo said. “He does not have one.”

“But he’s a foreign delegate, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Zenyatta raised a hand and cut in, “It was my choice not to bring any. My being here is not something I want to hide. It represents something more than just an omnic from Nepal, it is also the potential for better omnic-human relations. If I distrust the city and hide behind a security detail, what am I saying about the future?”

Hanzo and Genji looked at each other in disbelief, having been lectured by a robot monk just now. They spoke at the same time, “That is unrealistic.” “He has a point, you know.” Hanzo glared at his sibling for the betrayal and supporting Zenyatta instead of his own brother. “Nevertheless, after yesterday we must assign you one of our own security. We can’t just let you go out unprotected.”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Zenyatta said. 

“That is not what I’m implying. If you don’t want an entire detail, please take at least one. I would be a terrible host and an even worse council member if you got hurt.”

Zenyatta brought a hand to his chin and tapped thoughtfully. “I have quite a few stops planned today, do you think any of your guard is able to keep up with me?”

At the same time; Hanzo furrowing his brow at the comment, Genji’s eyes sparkling at the unofficial dare. Before Hanzo could defend his staff, his younger brother stepped forward. “I’d be happy to take up your challenge.”

_“Genji,”_ Hanzo hissed under his breath. He reached out to grab his brother by the sleeve, but Genji dodged gracefully.

“Oh? Is that so?” Zenyatta hummed, the mischievous smile evident in his voice. 

“If you don’t believe me, I can show you. I have a reputation around here for being able to keep up w-- _OOF!”_ Genji wheezed as Hanzo elbowed him in the gut. 

“I apologize, Zenyatta, for my extremely rude brother. I promise that he is not like this all the time.”

Zenyatta held a hand up to his chassis and laughed (Genji, bent over in pain, thought he could hear chimes on the wind). “It is no problem at all. On the contrary, I find it charming… in its own way.”

Genji rose up from his doubled over position the same way a zombie would rise from its grave, suddenly and eagerly. “Ha!” he barked at his older brother-- and then immediately coughed and acted more appropriately. “I mean-- thank you, Zenyatta, for giving me a chance to prove myself.”

Zenyatta laughed again and Hanzo pinched the bridge of his nose, while Genji had not felt the rush of pursuit so strongly for a long time.

 

= = = = =

 

To his credit, Genji was doing a very good job being Zenyatta’s bodyguard. He was professional (to a point) and charismatic. In any other scenario Zenyatta would have loved to spend the day with him.

But in this scenario, Genji was acting as his bodyguard, and Zenyatta did not want a bodyguard. Period.

Zenyatta had packed average clothes (t-shirts, sweatpants, jeans) alongside his robes so that he could blend in with the crowd. He had not changed one bit throughout his life with the Shambali and, consequently, his fame. In fact he had tried to avoid the cameras and spotlights on multiple occasions, preferring to stay lesser known so that he could approach people without them having a preconception of him.

With Genji almost literally attached at his side, Zenyatta was anything but inconspicuous. Even while wearing street clothes Genji was well-known. Store owners would greet him or try to start a conversation about his family, strangers would come up to him and speak of shenanigans of times past. Women and men alike would budge in between Zenyatta and Genji in order to take his place at the Shimada’s hip. They would twirl their hair with a finger, look up at Genji from below their eyelashes, hold his bicep, subconsciously stand in a flattering position. 

If Zenyatta was a better omnic and less prone to trouble, he would have accepted Genji’s frequent apologies for the attention and continued on with their trip. Perhaps they would end the day at an omnic-friendly cafe, speaking of nothing and everything, and then return back to the palace for a peaceful evening.

Zenyatta was not the best omnic.

“Hey, it’s Genji!” “Genji!” “Hi~” cried a group of women. They waded through the store racks to approach the pair, somehow never breaking their fish school troupe apart. They looked to be young, much younger than he knew Genji to be.

“Oh. Hello, ladies,” Genji laid on the charm, though by this time Zenyatta knew it to be a front. The more they got pulled over by his multiple ‘acquaintances’, the more tired Genji looked. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“We haven’t seen you in years!” “What have you been up to?”

As Genji went through the motions of small talk with strangers barely qualified as his friends, Zenyatta took his chance. With his guard’s attention on someone else he was free to quietly slip away into the crowd. Zenyatta did not dare stop and look back until he had passed at least five shops and could barely see the one he came from. He let out an artificial (and admittedly smug) sigh, suddenly reminded of days gone by of him doing the same at the monastery.

Now that he was truly alone and free to do as he wished, Zenyatta enjoyed taking his sweet time looking through each shop. There was a tea shop that carried drinks for omnics; not only flavoured oil but also multicoloured coolant for those with their tubes exposed. Zenyatta picked up a handmade teacup that had a picture of a man cooking ramen with the ingredients listed in both japanese and english on the sides, and then a second for his brother back home. Mondatta would protest souvenirs every time, but Zenyatta knew of his tacky collection of knick-knacks and trinkets.

Zenyatta had gone through two more stores (one dedicated to board games and the other stuffed animals) before something in the crowd caught his eye. There was a ripple, the smallest hint of discord and negativity, coming from somewhere nearby. Zenyatta had trained himself to muffle or mute his senses to souls while out in public areas, but this was strong enough for him to stop what he was doing. He followed it out of the throng of people without hesitation until he came to the smallest alley in between two stores.

Sensing the danger, Zenyatta prepared his omnic orbs for action and carefully followed the source of negativity. The closer he became the more he learned as the sounds of people around the corner for clearer. Two bodies at least, one talking in a stern and demanding tone, while the other mumbled and whimpered. A voice came to Zenyatta, unbidden;

_(‘Just promise me that you will stay safe.’)_

Zenyatta could walk into an alley and be safe. Both of those things weren't mutually exclusive. Even when he turned the corner and saw that the source of the discord was someone being robbed. 

He might just opt to not tell Mondatta. 

“Is this a bad time?”

Both people turned to stare at Zenyatta, their faces the epitome of shock. Holding her purse as a shield was an omnic that presented as female, the large sun hat on her head the most eye catching thing on her. In between her and Zenyatta was a human that wore all black and covered their face with a ski mask. In their hand was a Taser, electricity jumping from its teeth back and forth. 

“H--Help…” whispered the omnic desperately.

“Turn around and pretend you didn’t see anything, toaster,” said the robber. “This doesn’t gotta turn ugly.”

“I completely agree,” Zenyatta said. “Violence is completely avoidable. If you leave now, then we may be saved a confrontation.”

A dark and rough laugh came from behind the fabric mask and he turned to face Zenyatta completely. “You got a sense of humour, don’t ya? Sorry, but I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“I am completely serious.”

“Seriously nuts, obviously. I’m givin’ you one more chance. Get outta here.”

“I’m afraid I cannot do that.”

“Sucks for you,” grunted the robber. He took one step towards his new target-- and before he could get any closer something fell from the rooftops. Landing perfectly in between the omnic woman and her offender was Green Sentai. The hero stood up from his crouched position and placed his hands on his hips.

“Too bad you didn’t take his offer,” Green Sentai said.

The lapse in attention was all that Zenyatta needed. As soon as the robber was distracted by Green Sentai, Zenyatta lunged forwards and grabbed the wrist that was gripping the taser. The stranger wailed as Zenyatta twisted it painfully behind his back, causing him to drop the weapon on the cement with a clatter. With one more attack Zenyatta pulled back and then slammed his metal head against the human’s skull. The robber went limp and fell on the ground.

A pregnant pause as both the omnic woman and Green Sentai processed what just happened.

“I’m gonna be out of a job if you keep fighting all the bad guys for me,” Green Sentai sighed and shook his head. “You know, we're here so that you don’t need to do that.”

“And you are doing your job very well,” Zenyatta said. “Were it not for you, the scuffle would have lasted much longer.”

Green Sentai laughed loudly. “You’re something else, aren’t you?”

“It’s been insinuated.”

“I don't think I've ever met anyone like you before.”

“To be fair, I’ve never met someone like you either.” Zenyatta could feel energy radiating from the Green Sentai, though exactly which one it was he could not tell. “I suppose this is the moment you tell me not to put myself in danger again.”

Green Sentai shrugged, “Nah. I can see that you’re capable of handling yourself.”

Zenyatta tilted his head. He didn’t expect a compliment. “Thank you.”

“No, thank _you,”_ Green Sentai said. “That was quite the show you put on.”

“Oh? You enjoyed watching me knock out a fully grown adult?”

“Yeah, it was hot,” the hero chuckled. “How did you manage to look pious while slamming your face against him?”

Zenyatta hummed. “Practice.”

Another laugh, loud and warm behind that helmet, tapering off into a sigh. “But… in all seriousness, what you did was really brave. I don’t know many people who would put themselves in harm’s way to save a stranger. Have you ever thought of becoming a superhero yourself?”

“I can’t say I have.”

“You should. I have a feeling you would be good at it.”

The sound of police sirens paused their conversation. It was as if he had surfaced from a pool he wasn’t aware he had been submerged in; a blast of cold air to Zenyatta’s processors. He would need to perform maintenance on himself and run diagnostics on his chronometers. How much time had passed whilst speaking to Green Sentai?

“Th--Thank you…” the lady omnic, barely recovered from shock, managed to get out. “Both of you! Green Sentai and… and I don’t know your name.”

“Since this one here was the one to take out your attacker,” Green Sentai said. “Then I shall leave him to deal with the police. Stay safe, citizens! Keep doing what you feel is right.”

With the kinds of flips and jumps that wouldn’t be out of place at a circus, the green clad hero made his escape to the rooftops and away beyond sight. Zenyatta could think upon their peculiar meeting later, for now there was someone that he needed to make sure was unharmed.

“Were you hurt?” Zenyatta asked, doing a visual check of the omnic for any exterior damage.

“N-No, thank you… You got here just in time. I don’t know how to thank you…”

“There is no need. I am happy knowing that I was able to stop any violence before it happened and that you were not robbed.”

“... Robbed?” the omnic woman tilted her head just as the sound of sirens came into the alley and the authorities filtered in. “I was not being robbed.”

“Oh. Do you know what he wanted of you?”

“N-Not really… He was trying to get me to follow him while threatening me, but you and Green Sentai arrived before anything else happened.”

The omnic waved to the cops behind Zenyatta at the mouth of the alleyway and called out to them, saying what happened. Meanwhile Zenyatta scanned the unconscious man on the ground to double check that he would not be getting up anytime soon.

 

= = = = =

 

Zenyatta had tried to find his chaperone after he was finished speaking to the police, but to his dismay Genji was nowhere to be found. Guilt had washed over him after the scuffle and he wanted to apologize. He checked the shop he last left him in and then several surrounding it, even going as far as to backtrack the way they had come, all to no avail. Perhaps they had been right to assign an escort to Zenyatta. Against all of the odds he had managed to find trouble.

By the time he came back to the palace it was just past sunset. The security was changing shift to the midnight guard, and the closing staff were saying their goodbyes at the front gate. As soon as he could, Zenyatta found Hanzo and asked if he had heard anything from his brother.

“Genji?” Hanzo asked. “He texted me a few hours ago and said that you two had parted ways after dinner. Why? Is everything alright?”

“Ah, yes. I believe it is,” Zenyatta said. “Thank you.”

It was on autopilot that Zenyatta navigated back to his quarters. Had Genji covered for him? Even after Zenyatta ditched him without a word? His host had been nothing but charming and polite and Zenyatta had given him disrespect. Why would Genji do such a thing?

It seemed unlikely that he had wanted to get away from Zenyatta just as much, with how he had volunteered to spend the day with him in the first place. Perhaps during their trip he had become bored and took advantage of Zenyatta’s mischief. Perhaps he was planning on confronting Zenyatta about his fib later and asking for a favour in return.

Zenyatta came back to himself when he was already dressed in sleepwear and sitting at the head of his bed. It was early to begin his recharging cycle… but he had had an exciting day. He had earned a rest. It wasn’t everyday that Zenyatta was to--

Then again, with almost getting kidnapped yesterday, perhaps he _was_ cursed to have a scuffle with strange villains every day. 

He casually checked his phone for new messages. There was a long, essay-like check in from Mondatta and then several texts from Zenyatta’s new friends. 

As night finally fell and Zenyatta let his mind drift off to other places, still the enigmas that were Genji and Green Sentai danced in his head. The last thoughts before his systems succumbed to recharge mode were of the two men.

They seemed to enter Zenyatta’s mind very easily recently.


	3. Episode 3: It's a Long Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta spends a peaceful morning with Genji... but there are people who aren't happy about Zenyatta having foiled their plans at the restaurant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update!! ive been going through kind of a drop and last week i was super duper unproductive. hopefully i can jump back onto schedule! for some reason i dont feel like this is my best chap >:/ but then again ppl are always extra critical of their own work

Zenyatta’s jieba blinked in surprise. “Good morning, Genji.”

Genji smirked at the omnic. He stood in the hall outside Zenyatta’s bedroom door, and Zenyatta was reminded of a cat that had cornered its prey. “Good morning, Master Zenyatta.”

Zenyatta cocked his head, “‘Master’? What brought this up?”

“I wanna show you the respect an important omnic like yourself deserves... Also Hanzo yelled at me,” Genji’s eyes twinkled. “Kinda suits you, now that I hear it outloud. Maybe I should say it more often.”

Zenyatta tilted his head playfully. “So you’ve come to my bedroom… to call me ‘master’?”

The verbal duel came to a halt as Zenyatta’s quip scored a coup de main and left Genji with wide eyes and pink cheeks. He scrambled to gather himself and laughed in an attempt to ease his bashfulness. “No! No… I came to ask if you wanted to, uh, go for a walk with me.”

“A walk?”

“Yeah. We don’t have to go far; the garden here is really nice.”

Zenyatta hummed and touched his chin as if he was thinking about it, but truthfully he had already decided. “I would be honoured.”

Genji waited at the door as Zenyatta finished his business inside. As soon as he reemerged, Genji had that smile on his face again. The one that made Zenyatta’s processors race. If he were a creature of flesh, surely his instincts would be fighting against their fight or flight response. There was something… hiding behind that grin, a buried potential for trouble right behind those white teeth.

The walk to the gardens was uneventful. It was too early for the majority of the staff to have arrived yet and the tours would not start for another two hours; yet it was still late enough for the sun to have been up for some time already. Zenyatta let himself absorb the architecture around him as he walked, content in the silence. Perhaps he was imagining it, but Zenyatta felt eyes on him whenever he was looking away from the younger Shimada.

“Hey, uh,” Genji said when they entered the garden, a hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry for ditching you the other day. That wasn’t cool of me.”

Zenyatta turned to look at Genji in confusion. “Ditched me…?”

“Yeah. At the shopping district when I couldn’t find you I went off and did my own thing.”

“Genji… You couldn’t find me because I had run away. I was the one who ditched you.”

“Well I mean… it wasn’t as if I looked very hard,” Genji said. “And it wasn’t very nice of us to force a chaperone on you in the first place.”

“Perhaps we can agree on a ‘sorry’ from both of our parts, and then consider each other forgiven, hm?”

Genji blinked… and then shook his head and chuckled. “You really are something else.”

Zenyatta’s audio sensors picked up the familiar phrase and his memory banks played a clip from the other day;

_Green Sentai laughed loudly. “You’re something else, aren’t you?”_

“So I’ve been told,” Zenyatta said and filed it away as a little inside joke with himself

Genji and Zenyatta walked the rest of the path into the garden area before they came upon a set of benches. Sitting down they had the perfect view of the cherry blossoms, their tiny petals floating down like snow on Christmas. Zenyatta wondered if at the end of his trip he could take a small branch and replant it back at the monastery. The others at home would be ecstatic to see their wintery home with a new smattering of pink.

“So…” Genji trailed off as he tried to find something to talk about. “Why is a big-shot Shambali like you in our little town?”

Zenyatta hummed. “I am here to negotiate plans for a new Shambali temple.”

“No, I know that. I mean like, don’t you have acolytes for this or something?”

“What makes you think I’m any more special than these ‘acolytes’?”

“Well you don’t dress as fancy as Mondatta does… but it’s kind of hard not to recognize you after you showed up all over TV last year.”

Zenyatta sighed, “I was hoping that would not be the case.”

“If you meant to keep yourself hidden, you actually did a fairly good job. I had to look you up to find out that it was you at all.”

“Oh? You researched me?” Zenyatta said with a tinge of smugness. “If so… it makes me wonder why you needed to ask my reasons for being here.”

Genji was suddenly very interested at the cherry blossoms (and was definitely not avoiding eye contact). “Well I mean… it’s one thing to read up on some memos and then another to hear it from the source. Maybe I was just testing you.”

“Testing me on my own motivations?”

“Yeah. You passed-- just by a little bit, though.”

“Luck must be on my side,” Zenyatta said with amusement, then folded his hands in his lap. “But truthfully, I am not any more special than my brothers and sisters in the monastery. All of us are equal.”

“Kind of hard to believe when you were on the news for stopping an assassination attempt.”

“We are not judged by our abilities, but by our actions,” Zenyatta said. 

“Says the omnic that sprouted several arms and turned into a lighthouse.”

Zenyatta threw his head back and laughed, which seemed to make Genji relax a little bit. “I’ve never heard it described as that before. I’ll have to remember it.”

“You’re not denying it.”

“No, I’m not. Even with my ability to ‘turn into a lighthouse’ I could have just as easily done nothing. I could have chosen to stay on the safe side and not get involved. Even if I could not do what I did… I would still have done all I could to save Mondatta.”

Genji watched Zenyatta’s face, searched him for any ticks or hints as to what he was thinking, but it was difficult when his faceplate could not move. “Mondatta… he means a lot to you.”

“Hmm, yes. He does.”

“Are you two…?” Genji asked hesitantly. “I mean… is he your…?”

Zenyatta looked at Genji blankly. Genji began to sweat.

“Is he my what?”

“Your… Isheyourboyfriend?”

There was a pause as Zenyatta’s processors soaked in the question. In truth it lasted less than a handful of seconds, but to Genji it lasted an eternity. What was wrong with him?! It wasn’t a bad question! Why did he have to stutter it out like an idiot?!

Then Zenyatta laughed again and Genji was torn between beaming from the wonderful sound, or throwing himself into the abyss in embarrassment. “No. We are not an item,” Zenyatta said in the last legs of his chuckling. “I consider him a best friend and a brother.”

“Can omnics _have_ brothers?”

“Brotherhood is more than blood, Genji.”

“I feel like I’m talking to a fortune cookie.”

“Would you also like to know your lucky numbers?”

Genji snorted. “I’ll pass this time.”

Zenyatta tilted his head, and though he could not physically smile, Genji got the feeling that one was being directed at him. “You are very funny, Genji.”

“Is that a bad thing or a good thing?” Genji whipped out his brightest and most charming smirk.

He got another giggle in return. “A good thing.”

 

“Thank you for the walk today, Genji.”

“I should be thanking you,” Genji smiled (he hadn’t been able to stop since they had begun walking to the main gates. 

“We shall agree to disagree,” Zenyatta hummed. “But I get to thank you for walking me out.”

“What if it was actually _you_ walking _me_ out?”

“Oh my. I’ve been tricked truly and completely,” Zenyatta said in his ‘least sarcastic’ voice.

“Would you walk with me again tomorrow?”

“I would like nothing m…” Zenyatta trailed off and looked outside the compound. “Do you… hear something?”

Genji’s battle instincts snapped into gear just in time to see something just out of sight, lurking in the large shadows that the gates cast. He mentally berated himself for letting his guard down so thoroughly-- he had not done something so amateur since he had first began his heroic career. There was no time to close the doors-- barely any time to do anything. There was the glimmer of sun reflecting off of metal and Genji followed his instincts.

Usually Zenyatta would have been able to withstand any shove that he received from a human, being made of metal and everything. However as he wasn’t expecting to be shoved by Genji, it was quite easy to push him to the ground. He landed on the wooden floor with an ‘oof’ and had to recalibrate his balance systems. “Genji, what--”

Zenyatta gasped as Genji cried out in pain. His standing form shook and twitched for a terrifying amount of time before he collapsed on the ground. Two wires emerged from the back of his shirt. Zenyatta followed them back to the owner, who had stepped out of the shadows. 

“Tch,” the beast clicked its tongue. “Damn. Quick little shit; I only brought one taser with me today.”

Every warning system inside of Zenyatta went into a code red as the stranger towered over him. It pressed a large boot to the back of Genji’s head, causing a weak groan to come from him.

“Now, you’re that Shambali, right?” it asked hypothetically in a voice like nails on chalkboard. “I’d recommend you come with me nice and peacefully, or else your friend here is gonna get a real bad headache.”

 

= = =

 

As soon as Zenyatta stepped into the van a black sack was put over his head. He turned his optical systems on stand by and rerouted the processing power to places it would be needed. Whoever had kidnapped him hadn't cut any corners when it came down to it; it was difficult even for his audio detection to function when his bag was made of such thick material. 

But what he could hear was revealing in its own way. As soon as possible the driver had turned into a less busy street, the lack of traffic picked up by Zenyatta’s audio systems. There was no talking, no other people but the kidnapper in the vehicle. It was good in that Zenyatta would not be teamed up on, and bad in that it would be more difficult to rely on distractions. 

Zenyatta raked over the small amount of footage he had been able to catch of his offender. A deep, scratchy voice; the voice of someone who had smoked more cigarettes than humanly possible. Incredibly tall, at least nine feet. Tactical gear-- but there was something off about the shape he cut in them. Something just tiptoeing outside the boundaries of humanity. 

The van came to a violent stop exactly nineteen minutes and forty six seconds since they had left the palace. At first there was nothing, no sound of a door opening, only shifting and an occasional tinkle of keys. After another minute finally the kidnapper opened the driver side door and exited the van. The sound of gravel crunching underneath boots could be heard outside and it circled around to the back doors. The doors opened with a creak and a groan and Zenyatta barely had enough time to think of something to say before he was grabbed around the forearm and yanked outside. 

“Don't fall behind,” the monster of a man grunted. It was difficult to follow his orders given how long his legs were but Zenyatta tried his best. 

“Hey! The boss is here! Everyone shut up!” came a voice from a few metres away. There was talking that bled into murmuring, and Zenyatta felt his nonexistent stomach sink with the knowledge that he was grossly out numbered. 

“You're just in time,” came another voice. 

“You think I don't know that?” Zenyatta’s kidnapped growled. “Is the cargo ready or what?”

“Yeah. All the tin cans are good to go for when she shows up.”

Tin cans? 

Was Zenyatta not the only omnic that was kidnapped? 

“She's here! Everyone shut the fuck up!” Zenyatta’s kidnapper barked. “Act like functional adults for once!”

Zenyatta could not see anything, but he could feel the grip on his arm tighten, then tighten further. The metal creaked and Zenyatta tensed as his pain receptors fired off. Just who was the man that was determined to buckle his arm? _What_ was he? 

He could hear the sound of tires on dirt and of footsteps scrambling to their places. There was a car hitting the breaks and then the click of a door opening. Someone stepped out. Not one person said a word.

“I would congratulate you all,” came a voice-- higher pitched. A woman? “If you weren’t all incompetent sacks of meat.”

Negative energy wafted off of both the grunts and their supposed boss. It made Zenyatta shiver with their unease-- forced to stifle his spiritual senses if he wanted his head to stay above water. The large hand on his arm squeezed again; a warning. “There-- there must be a misunderstanding, ma’am,” the man said. “We did all you asked… we even went above and beyond! I grabbed--”

“You mean the glorified lamppost you have on your arm?” she asked. “Or should I call it the ‘walking trouble magnet’?”

“W-What--?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t remember asking you to cause a scene by kidnapping-- oh I don’t know-- the most important omnic in the fucking city?!”

“But it-- it messed with us… It’s this thing’s fault that our last heist didn’t work…”

“So I give you explicit orders to stay on the down low, to not arouse suspicion, and your first thought is to jerk off your revenge boner and grab the omnic that made a huge scene?”

Zenyatta fought to keep his balance as the hand gripping him was flung off. There was the sound of a scuffle right beside where his ears would be. A thump on the ground. A hiss of pain. The quietest inhale of breath from the crowd of grunts. Someone brushed their hands together as if removing dust from them.

“The entire day is a waste now because of you. Any minute now those Sentai Gorangers are gonna show up and bust this sham of a heist. Imbecile,” At the mention of the Sentai, a murmur broke out across the soldiers. “Was I called here to be sabotaged? To be taken down along with all of you? Unfortunately for you, I’ll be far away by the time they show up. I am leaving.”

The slam of a car door, the revving of its engine, and as quickly as it had appeared it was gone.

“Fuck,” Zenyatta’s kidnapper growled. “Fuck!”

“Boss… what do we do?” one of the grunts asked.

“What the hell do you think?!” he roared. “Get in position! We’re not going to let those Sentai foil us again. We’ll prove that bitch wrong.”

Someone grabbed Zenyatta’s arm once more and dragged him off. The farther they walked, the harder it became to keep track of where they were. No matter how many twists and turns Zenyatta filed into his short-term memory he still could not guess where they were going. After what must have been an eternity (but was truly only ten minutes according to his internal chronometers) the grip on his arm let go of him… though not quite in a gentle way. It was difficult not to stumble when he was being shoved.

The kidnapper paced back and forth a few feet away, mumbling to himself angrily. Every other word Zenyatta could hear him grit through his teeth and slam his fist against the wall. The door they had come in through opened with a click and a creak.

“Boss…” said a soldier. “They-- They’re here. The Ryūjin Sentai Gorangers…”

“Then what the fuck are you doing here for?” came a growl. “Go fight them! Protect me!”

“I--I can’t,” the grunt said. “They’re--”

There was a warcry, the sound of a weapon fitting flesh, and then a thump as the grunt fell to the floor. Zenyatta’s kidnapper swore as footsteps filed into the room.

“I think he was about to say ‘They’re here’,” a familiar filtered voice said.

“Green Sentai…?” Zenyatta spoke up. “Is that you?”

Green Sentai answered with his familiar chuckle, “We need to stop meeting like this.”

“I would have to agree,” Zenyatta said, and he couldn’t help but smile internally.

But the kidnapper was still there. He growled low like a feral animal and reminded Zenyatta that it was not quite time to relax, no matter how safe Green Sentai made him feel. “You’re not taking me alive.”

“I don’t see any weapons on you. Are you gotta stop me with that little knife you have on your belt?” Green Sentai asked.

“I don’t need a weapon to kill you.” There was a click as the man unfastened the helmet that covered his face and he threw it to the ground.

“Aw fuck,” said Green Sentai. “How many of you mutants are there?”

More footsteps, two more strangers came into the room. Zenyatta’s chassis tightened at the possibility of them belonging to more soldiers but his fears were quickly put to rest. “Just one,” the southern drawl filtered through a helmet, Zenyatta recognized it as Yellow Sentai. “We couldn’t find any others on the way here.”

“You…!” hissed the bad guy. “How did you get past security?!”

“Quite easily,” the third Sentai piped in. He had less humour in his voice than the other two; Blue Sentai? “Though it was good target practice.”

“You’re out outnumbered, big guy,” said Yellow Sentai. “Come with us nice and easy and you won’t have to be hurt.”

Silence permeated the room, thick enough to cut with a knife. Zenyatta would have thought himself alone if he could not hear the heavy breathing coming from his kidnapper. Without warning, a wave of intense discord overwhelmed Zenyatta’s senses and stunned him for a second. Enough time for the beast of a man to grab him and pull him close. 

“I don’t think so,” growled the kidnapper. The black sack on Zenyatta’s head was whipped off so all three heroes could see his identity. “You three are gonna let me go nice and easy, or else this tin can here is gonna get a knife in its neck. It don’t got any blood, but severing some wires will be just as good.”

“Shit,” Green Sentai hissed. “That’s a dirty trick.”

“Does it look like I give a fuck? Drop your weapons.”

Zenyatta felt the tip of a knife press against his neck wires, and he decided that he had had enough. His focus turned to the man-- no, the monster looming over him. There was little humanity left in the face he saw; large mandibles on either side of its mouth and eight unblinking eyes staring into the heroes.

“I’d rather not be used as a bargaining chip,” he said calmly. “So I’ll have to decline.”

The monster barely had time to open his mouth before Zenyatta’s hand shot to its wrist almost too fast to see. He gripped it tightly and twisted as he turned around. It was enough pain to make the beast cry out in surprise and drop its weapon, and enough time for Zenyatta to take advantage of to take a swing. His metal hand collided with the monster’s chitin face with a loud _CRACK!_ Sharp inhuman teeth went flying out of the monster’s mouth and it dropped to the floor like a rock. Zenyatta shook out his hand.

“Damn,” Green Sentai muttered. “That was _hot.”_

Green Sentai then cried out in pain dramatically as his blue teammate punched him in the arm.

“Thank you,” Zenyatta replied playfully.

“You could’a been seriously hurt,” Yellow Sentai huffed. “But I gotta agree… that was pretty damn badass of you.”

There was the feeling of a judgemental gaze coming from behind Blue Sentai’s visor. “You’re hurt.”

Zenyatta’s lights blinked in confusion. He visually inspected himself and was surprised to see he was right; Zenyatta’s right hand was dangerously close to being described as ‘shattered’. Most of the smaller more intricate pieces were knocked out of place and broken on the floor, while the larger parts were violently bent and dented. He went over his sensory log and found that he had completely missed the alerts of pain and damage from his hand not a minute earlier.

“Did that monster do this to you..?” Green Sentai asked in a low tone. It was eerily unfamiliar in its hostility compared to his constant playful voice.

“No,” Zenyatta said. “I must have hit it harder than I thought. I barely noticed.”

“White Sentai is here, too. She'll be able to heal you. Come with me.”

Before Zenyatta could even think about protesting, Green Sentai grabbed his good hand and swept him away. The hero strode with the purpose of a thousand righteous crusaders… yet somehow his pace was just right for Zenyatta to keep up with. The grip on his hand was as strong as the one that had been on his arm earlier… yet it was not as harsh. There was no well of discord coming from Green Sentai.

Zenyatta found himself cataloguing the feeling of Green Sentai’s hand without noticing. He recorded the pressure of each finger pad, the shape of his palm, the warmth that permeated the thick fabric glove he wore. When he finally did notice was he was doing… he did not stop himself. Instead he pinned a note to the data as he filed it away:

_‘Why did I record this?’_

The two eventually found whatever room Green Sentai was looking for. From the size and the bare walls it must have been the storage room of the warehouse they were in. Huddled together was a gaggle of omnics. There were pairs that held each other and trios that comforted one another, while a majority of them were standing in line or sitting on the floor waiting for White Sentai to get to them. A soft golden glow came from her stave as he held it over one omnic’s chassis. The large bent in the middle shuddered and then popped back into its original shape, causing the patient to flinch in surprise. Red Sentai was off to the side with those who were already healed or had not been hurt at all, asking questions and taking notes.

“White Sentai,” Green Sentai called as he strode across the room with Zenyatta in tow. “We got the representative, but he’s hurt.”

White Sentai nodded, “Let me take a look at you.”

Even after they approached the healer, Green Sentai kept a hold of Zenyatta’s hand for just a moment longer than he needed to. Zenyatta gave his injured hand to White Sentai and watched her gently press her fingers against it, turning it this way and that and she hummed in thought. Finally she sighed and shook her head.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Tekhartha, I cannot heal this. The damage is too extensive; I’m afraid it’s unrepairable.”

Zenyatta nodded “That’s what I thought,” at the same time Green Sentai cried out in disbelief “What?!”

“Omnics are complicated beings, Green Sentai,” White Sentai explained to him. “It is true that there are basics to their anatomy… but compared to humans, each one of them might as well be a different species. My stave is able to repair the most basic of damages to them… however Mr. Tekhartha’s hand is extremely detailed and has many small parts. It will have to be replaced.”

“Thank you, White Sentai,” Zenyatta bowed his head. “Thankfully I have spare parts at my home in Nepal. I should be able to ask one of my brothers or sisters to mail them to me.”

“Thank goodness,” White Sentai said, her voice sincerely worried and sorry for her inabilities. Meanwhile Zenyatta could feel Green Sentai’s gaze burning into the side of his head. If he reached out with his spiritual senses, he could feel a restrained source of discord within the hero. Was he upset on Zenyatta’s behalf?

“If we had gotten here sooner…” he mumbled to himself.

“I mean no disrespect, Green Sentai,” Zenyatta said. “But I’m sure that I would have defended myself no matter when you showed up. My hand was destined to be broken.”

Green Sentai stared at the omnic beside him for an awkward, silence-filled moment, before he burst out into laughter. Even White Sentai chuckled to herself as she returned back to healing. The green hero crossed his arms over his chest and threw his head back as his laughter gained a second wind.

“You sure you don’t wanna join us?” Green Sentai asked when he finally came down from his fit. “It sounds like you would fit right in.”

“Unfortunately, a broken hand is not the most useful for fighting crime, so I will have to decline.”

“Too bad. Maybe if you don’t manage to break your other one before your replacement comes I’ll swing by and ask again when you’re better.”

“Hmm. I will think about it,” Zenyatta hummed.

Zenyatta could feel the smile beaming at him from behind Green Sentai’s visor. The amount of raw happiness being directed at him caught him off guard and turned his jieba a golden yellow for just a split second.

“The police are on their way,” Red Sentai approached them. “Greetings, representative.”

“And to you, Red Sentai.”

“I apologize that this happened to you again; with this bust we’ll have enough information on the people behind this to really start cracking down.”

“So… this omnic kidnapping has been happening a lot recently?”

Red Sentai sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. Thankfully we’ve been able to rescue everyone that’s been taken so far… but I’d rather have stopped it in the first place.” Soon enough the distant sound of police sirens could be heard outside the warehouse they were in. Red Sentai looked towards the entrance. “Good, the police are here. They’ll be able to escort you home safely.”

“Escort me home? I will be leaving only once all of the others who were kidnapped are safely taken back to their homes.”

“Mr. Tekhartha, you are more than one omnic. You are a symbol, you represent not only the Shambali but also the future of the omnic community in our city. Your safety is priority.”

Zenyatta was reminded of his brother back at home, and he was struck with the idea of introducing him to Red Sentai. Perhaps they would get along. “If I represent the omnic community, then the omnic community should be treated the same as I, and be taken home first and foremost.”

Green Sentai snorted. “Sorry, Red, you really can’t argue with this one. He’ll talk circles around you.”

Red Sentai gazed at Zenyatta before shaking her head and looking down in disappointment. “Fine. I cannot make you do anything you don’t want, but I must insist that you get a ride back with the police instead of walking.”

“I will accept your conditions,” Zenyatta hummed.

Once he had said that, the police came perfectly on cue and filed into the large room. Half of them broke off to speak to the former prisoners while the other continued to search the facility. After their arrival everything was a rush; testimonies being taken and identities being recorded before they were swept off and taken to the station or back to their home. Somewhere in the midst of it the Sentai Gorangers had slipped away. Zenyatta was approached by an officer once every half hour to be offered an escort home, and to each one he would politely decline and give the same reasoning he gave Red Sentai.

 

By the time Zenyatta was dropped off at the main gates the blue morning sky had turned orange with the sunset. It was hard to believe that his adventure had taken almost all day, but his chronometers told him the truth of how much time had passed. As he stepped onto the street Zenyatta felt the day’s fatigue finally catch up with him. He felt as if he had not entered sleep mode for a week.

Waiting at the gate was Genji.

A very stressed Genji by the look of his pacing and how intensely he stared at the ground in front of him. At the sound of Zenyatta closing the car door behind him, the Shimada’s head snapped up. Immediately all of that nervousness washed away and the twinkle in his eye returned with a vengeance. In two strides Genji was at Zenyatta’s side, his hands clapping onto metal shoulders.

“Oh thank God you’re safe. Are you hurt? What did they do to you?” Genji searched his friend for any damages and immediately his hawk eyes latched onto the mangled remains of Zenyatta’s hand. “Your hand!! Holy shit, what happened?!”

Oddly enough, with the simple touch of Genji’s hands on his shoulders, Zenyatta could feel his worries melt away. The fatigue he had felt morphed into something softer, something less aching. Somehow… Genji’s concerned face made Zenyatta happy.

“It’s a long story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also if you like my writing, check out the [omnic zine!!](https://omniczine.tumblr.com/post/164219896161/omnics-is-now-available-for-pre-order-and-will-be) i wrote a piece in it, and its chock full of amazing artists and creators! one of my best friends drew something for it also. pass it on!


	4. Episode 4: Taking a Sick Leave from a Sick Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta struggles to perform day-to-day errands with only one hand. Thankfully, someone is there to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whups that took a while lol  
> so i might be throwing my update schedule out the window, idk yet. just a warning, but i am planning on pumping more chapters out. we'll see!  
> this is more a mini chapter, according to my usual standards. this chapter and the next will prob be a bit smaller just because of the content... but chapter 6 i have a big plan >:3c

Zenyatta sighed. 

It had only been two days without his hand and already he was realizing how much it was taken it for granted. Example: the door in front of him. Normally harmless and hardly worth the CPU to remember, now an impassable obstacle. It had already taken a moment to figure out how to hold his laundry basket with only one hand; now he had to figure out how to open a door while his only useable hand was busy carrying something. The more obvious solution was to put the basket down and then open the door, but--

Then the door swung open on its own and Zenyatta jumped in surprise, dropping the laundry basket and making his internal dilemma moot. White robes spilled out across the wooden floor and he sighed in defeat. Perhaps he should have waited for his spare hand to arrive before declaring it laundry day. It was not as if he _needed_ his formal robes… but finding things to pass the time was difficult while partially amputated and confined to the palace.

“Shit--” swore the person behind the door. Zenyatta looked up-- it was Genji. To his credit, he looked extremely guilty about having a part in spilling the laundry. “I didn’t mean to-- here, let me get that.”

“There is no need, I’m capable of--”

“I want to,” Genji said. “Let me.”

Zenyatta searched Genji’s earnest puppy dog eyes and sighed, already foreseeing that he would eventually cave in. “I will not stop you.”

Genji’s grin turned up 100 megawatts and he jumped into the task of picking up all the clothes from the floor. It was almost as if he was more than happy to do such a thing-- but that would be silly. Genji may have been nice and charming so far, but surely he would rather be doing things more suited to him. There must have been a line of people vying for his attentions and flooding his day’s schedule.

Green hair bounced when Genji snapped up from his bent over position. Zenyatta held out his hand to take his basket back. “Thank you, Genji.”

Genji looked at Zenyatta’s outstretched hand like it had grown a face and began to talk at him. “Were you really gonna do laundry with only one hand…?”

“It isn’t so difficult…”

“Good,” Genji said. “Then you won’t mind me helping you.”

Zenyatta’s vocal systems emitted static in an omnic equivalent of spluttering, and before he could protest Genji had already spun around and taken the lead towards the laundry room. Zenyatta could only follow behind and try to keep up. Several different arguments surfaced in his mind and he prepared to persuade Genji to give him back his robes… but he hesitated. From the way Genji held his shoulders all the way down to how his feet almost skipped, Zenyatta could already see that his attempts would be fruitless.

“I have a feeling that you are used to getting what you want,” he commented.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Genji whistled innocently, like innocent people did. “By the way-- I didn’t know that omnics had to do laundry. You don’t sweat or anything… do you?”

“No, I do not sweat,” Zenyatta shook his head, amused. “But that does not mean that omnics are completely free from laundry duty. There are environmental factors; dust, dirt, and rain. Any joints that use grease or lubricant to function create discharge over time and that will ruin clothes quite easily.”

“But grease doesn’t really smell. You don’t _have_ to wash your clothes.”

“And if you did not care about your body odour, I suppose you wouldn’t _have_ to wash your clothes either.”

“Hey-- some people are into that.”

“Do you?”

Genji’s mouth spread into the smile of a cheshire cat. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Zenyatta laughed. Genji seemed to be good at making him do that. “You were right in that I have no real need to wash my clothes, but I do enjoy the knowledge of being fresh and clean.”

“Yeah, I guess I can understand that,” Genji hummed. 

The laundry room had four washer-dryer pairs and two long indoor clothes lines. The closest machines were thankfully empty. Not bothering to attempt protest again, Zenyatta only went along as Genji carefully put each robe inside the washer, occasionally answering Genji’s questions on whether they were machine safe or not.

“This seems like a large set up for only you and your brother,” Zenyatta commented.

Genji closed the machine door with a slam and punched in the washing instructions with a symphony of little beeps. “The staff use this laundry room, too. There’s always a million tablecloths to wash after events and tours, and the staff who live here use it for their clothes.”

“Oh. I had seen people around, but I never would have guessed that they live here.”

“This place is ridiculously huge, why wouldn’t they? WE have more than enough space,” Genji shrugged. Then he clapped his hands together and beamed at Zenyatta. “Anyways that’s enough chores for today, _yaaawn!_ Let’s go do something fun.”

Zenyatta got whiplash from the sudden change in subject. As quickly as they had entered the laundry room, Zenyatta was swept out of it. At some point Genji had slotted their hands together and all of these things combined had caused Zenyatta’s fans to partially malfunction. Eventually, after they had passed several turns and several more doors, he was able to gather himself enough to speak.

“Genji-- Genji, wait,” Zenyatta said. “There are still other errands I must run today…”

“Do them later,” Genji said. “Or-- better idea-- I’ll help you do them. Tomorrow though.”

“I couldn’t ask you to…”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. Your chores will get done faster with three hands instead of one.”

With each interaction the fact was proven more: There had never been anyone like Genji to cross Zenyatta’s path. He was convinced Genji must have been a force of nature, reborn in mortal form and sweeping people along wherever it went. Zenyatta could have been picked up by a gust of wind in a thunderstorm and it would not feel any different to how electrified he was at the point where his and Genji’s hands touched. Or perhaps Genji was a comet, trailing star dust behind him as he pulled Zenyatta along. Or perhaps he was the sun, lighting up the sky and warming all that looked upon him.

Or perhaps Zenyatta was being a tad romantically poetic about all of this.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you, Genji,” Zenyatta said.

Genji looked back, his eyes full of light. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The two came to whatever room that Genji was leading them to. Genji let go of Zenyatta’s hand to open the door and reveal what was inside. Natural light streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling glass balcony doors and cast the afternoon sun upon a simple bedroom. Just to the side of the bed was a door that led to an en suite. A handful of framed posters decorated the otherwise sparse walls, portraying movies and videogames that matched those on the floor in front of the television.

As Zenyatta took in his surroundings, Genji had walked in and plonked himself down on the floor at the foot of his bed. “Make yourself at home.”

“You must excuse me,” Zenyatta teased. “I’ve never been in another boy’s bedroom before.” It got the reaction he wanted from Genji, Genji’s bright laugh bouncing off of the walls. As he sat down next to him, Zenyatta couldn’t help but feel a phantom of the hand that had been holding his not moments before.

“Just don’t tell Hanzo I took you here, he’s gonna think I molested you,” Genji chuckled.

“And what should I say we did instead?”

Genji pulled out a keyboard from nearby and turned on his television. “That I saved your boring day by making you play games with me.”

“I doubt he would believe that.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Zenyatta held up his handless arm.

Genji scoffed. “You don’t need two hands to play games. I have one here that we can do together. It usually takes two hands, but that’s only if you’re playing by yourself. Here, you press these keys and I’ll control the mouse.”

“Won’t it be difficult to control with two people..?”

Genji beamed, “That’s the fun part!” 

 

It _was_ fun. The two of them had flubbed up multiple times; cheering when they did a task correctly, groaning or laughing when they messed up. Genji opened several more games that only required one hand to play and Zenyatta found his chronometers malfunctioning. Surely it had not been long enough for the sun to sink below the horizon; surely it had not been as many hours as it told him. Where had the time gone?

After they had run out of games to play, the two of them rummaged through Genji’s library of movies. Several times they were distracted when Zenyatta found a movie he had seen and they were swept up into a discussion on their favourite aspects of it. Zenyatta admitted his love for the cinema and confessed about his collection of Thespion 4.0 paraphernalia. In turn, Genji had mentioned how he was starting to become a fan of a new and upcoming actress, Hana Song. 

As it turned out that both actors had been in a movie together and Genji could order it online. Without hesitation it was plugged into the television and Zenyatta helped his host gather the blankets and pillows from the bed to make a comfortable nest on the floor. 

“Oh my God, this writing is terrible,” Genji groaned. 

“I don’t like to be negative about a movie before it’s over,” Zenyatta said. “But this time I’ll have to agree.”

“There he goes again! What is this guy doing? Is he being steered by his dick or something?!”

Before Genji could apologize for yelling profanities in front of a monk, Zenyatta bent over and laughed. “Has anyone told you that you have a wonderful way with words?”

The program had been on autoplay. As soon as their movie finished, the next recommended one began. The remote control was suddenly so far away… impossible to reach without moving. Besides, neither one was eager to get up and leave any time soon. Without noticing they had begun the next movie… and then the next… and the next…

 

Zenyatta found himself booting up. He must have entered sleep mode without noticing. What time was it? Had he made it back to his room?

He received his answer when he tried to move. A heavy weight pressed against his shoulder. Zenyatta turned his head to see what was on top of him and then stuttered to a stop. A large head of bright green hair rested on his shoulder and tickled his neck. Genji’s mouth was slightly open as he breathed slowly and heavily, not quite snoring but too loud to be silent. A kind of sleepy warmth radiated off of the areas of his body that were not covered by his clothes. He looked… younger. Peaceful.

It struck Zenyatta then, how beautiful Genji was. He had known at first sight about how aesthetically pleasing the human was-- yet he had never taken a moment to watch him carefully. He found himself recording trivial things like Genji’s BPM and the frequency of his breathing. Later… later he would justify his findings to himself. 

According to his chronometers, it was 2344 hours. It wouldn’t do to wake Genji up.

Zenyatta went back into slumber mode.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> btw i love comments and they fuel my writing marathons. the more comments i get the faster i update. im gay for comments and love


	5. Episode 5: There's Nothing Wrong With Clichés

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta meets Green Sentai again, and Green Sentai decides to show him something important.

It wasn't the best idea to run into trouble while he only had one hand. 

Zenyatta did not think about how he was at a disadvantage, nor his lack of backup; when he heard a cry for help he did not hesitate. Not to say that he was impulsive. Zenyatta was a fully operational omnic, he could think about what to do while running to his destination. He preferred to walk and take his time, but the current situation called for otherwise. 

An alleyway-- the same alleyway that Zenyatta had been mugged in-- but last time there was no bleeding human on the cement. Zenyatta got there as quickly as he could, dropping into a lotus position as he tossed his orb. It tethered to the human on the ground and wobbled from the momentum. As soon as he could he called the emergency number.

Zenyatta was washed with feedback, his omnic orb letting him connect to people spiritually. The pain lanced through him and fed the growing panic. _I'm gonna die here. I'm alone in an alley and I never told anyone where I was going and I'm going to die here. I'm going to die. I'm dying._

“You're not going to die,” Zenyatta’s honey voice smothered some of the victim's discord. “I am here to help you. May I perform first aid on you?”

“What? Y-Yeah, fuck. Do it. Please.”

With verbal permission Zenyatta was able to actually help the victim. He shrugged off his outer jacket and coaxed the human to lay on it. Zenyatta’s orb of harmony could indeed heal people from grievous wounds and calm them down; however, his powers could not stop any onset of shock. So he went through the human’s ABC’s and performed a quick body check. When he found no other injuries and the person was beginning to let his harmony orb do its work.

There was the tamp of something landing just a couple of metres away. Zenyatta’s head shot up, expecting the mugger or a paramedic, but standing there was Green Sentai. The normally pristine green armor was covered in dirt and scuffs. He was breathing heavily and his posture sagged when he saw Zenyatta.

With perfect timing, the ambulance blared its siren and turned the corner. The paramedics jumped out and began to do the primary survey like Zenyatta had. One of them approached Zenyatta, and he found himself swept up into the fast-paced scene. As he gave a rundown of his story he glanced in the direction of the victim. Relief rushed through him at the sight of the human being verbal. They would be okay.

With everything that had happened sweeping Zenyatta off of his feet, it took him a few minutes to remember that Green Sentai was there. The fact that he was a statue, silent and unmoving, did not help. He was no longer bent over nor was he breathing heavily. If Zenyatta’s optical sensors were not updated to the most current software he might have mistaken the hero for a cardboard cutout of himself.

Seeing that Green Sentai was not going to say anything, Zenyatta did instead. “Green Sentai, are you alright?”

Zenyatta’s call seemed to snap the hero out of whatever reverie he had been sucked into; and at the same time Zenyatta could feel a weight lift. Was Green Sentai staring at him? How had he not noticed?

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” Green Sentai mumbled underneath his helmet.

“You are covered in scuff marks,” Zenyatta pointed out.

“It’s nothing. I was chasing the culprit, getting dirty is part of the job.”

“Are you sure? You seem quiet. It’s not like you.”

Green Sentai exhaled and then brought himself to his full height. “I was just thinking, sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

The submissive apology was not like Green Sentai either, but Zenyatta kept that to himself. If the hero did not want to speak of what was haunting him, then it would do no good for Zenyatta to push. “There is no need to apologize, but I accept it nonetheless.”

And like that the silence settled over them once more. Both watched the paramedics finish their preparations and lift the victim into the ambulance. As soon as the key in the ignition turned a wailing siren blared from the vehicle. It carefully turned around and just as if was going back around the corner from whence it came-- Zenyatta felt a hand on his shoulder.

Green Sentai had not made a noise but suddenly he appeared flush to Zenyatta’s side. Zenyatta’s optical sensors were forced to adjust its aperture and he barely resisted jumping in surprise. 

“Green Sentai, what--?”

“Ever been flying before?”

If Zenyatta could blink dumbfoundedly, he would. He could feel the laser intense stare even behind Green Sentai’s opaque visor. Was this done kind of test? 

“... Flying?”

“Yeah. Have you ever been flying?”

“No… I can't say I have.”

“Neither have I,” Green Sentai’s smile was audible. “But I can show you the next best thing.”

With that as Zenyatta’s only warning, Green Sentai ducked down and plucked him off of the ground in a bridal style carry. Zenyatta only had time to gasp before the two of them took off in a shot, dust kicking up from the ground. 

Then they were in the air. Metal hands clung tightly to the nearest body parts they could find (which meant they were wrapped behind Green Sentai’s neck) as Zenyatta watched the world fall away. Up there was a perfect view of the horizon. Tall towers were sprinkled towards the more populated districts and sloped into a flat line of the suburban area. 

Zenyatta instinctively gripped tighter as gravity tugged them back towards the ground. He braced himself for a jarring landing and to feel the momentum shake his core-- but it never came. Green Sentai touched the roof with his feet as gently as a feather and then pushed off again, this time gaining even more height. All of the new information barraging Zenyatta’s systems caused him to feel dizzy; wind speed, kilometres per hour, air temperature, atmosphere pressure, and G forces. 

Thankfully, after a few moments he gathered himself enough to do more than hold a death grip on Green Sentai. Finally he looked around, _really_ looked around, and let himself enjoy the sensation of… well, flying. Green Sentai leapt from roof to roof with inhuman power and grace. At the very peak of every jump there would be the briefest moment of weightlessness. It was impossible… but for those few seconds they were floating. 

The farther Green Sentai took Zenyatta, the more relaxed he became. His grip laxed and he looked around the same way an excited child would press against the window on their first field trip. The sound of air whipping past faded away and all Zenyatta could focus on was the thrill. He turned to look at the man holding him, to thank him for showing Zenyatta such a wonderful thing, but Green Sentai was already looking at him. 

“Thank you, Green Sentai,” Zenyatta said breathlessly. The hero did not respond, only staring at him, and for a moment he worried that his voice would not be audible over the sound of the wind. 

The moment was jarred off course as Green Sentai almost lost his footing the next time they landed. He squawked indignantly and did his hardest to pay attention to jumping, _not_ to the omnic in his arms… no matter how enchanting he was.

One more kick off of an apartment complex, a boost from a half-finished construction site, and then the two of them landed to stay. They stood alone atop the tallest building in the city. Only a single emergency exit door kept them company. Any average human would be shivering from the change in air temperature, but Zenyatta and Green Sentai (which race he was, Zenyatta was not sure) were not average at all. 

Zenyatta had to recalibrate his balance as he was gently lowered to the ground. He was more affected by their trip than he thought. Green Sentai gestured to the fence at the edge of the roof. The space between the bars were small enough to block anyone from falling through, but just large enough for the average leg to fit. Green Sentai went ahead and plonked himself down on the gravel with a crunch, slipping his legs through to dangle freely in the air. Zenyatta followed his lead, holding to the bars lightly.

“I come here sometimes,” Green Sentai said. “To think.”

“It’s very beautiful,” Zenyatta said. 

“Yeah, and quiet.”

Zenyatta looked at Green Sentai and tilted his head in a smile. “Thank you for taking me here.”

Green Sentai averted his eyes to the drop below and rubbed the back of his neck. “Y-You don’t need to thank me.”

“But I do,” Zenyatta said. “To be taken to a place you find important… it’s a great honour.”

Green Sentai’s hand stopped where it was. It slacked and then dropped back to his side. Zenyatta could feel discord coming from him, a chill coming over the omnic the same way opening the fridge would hit him with a wave of cold. However, it was stifled. Zenyatta could feel how Green Sentai fought against it, how he struggled. Finally he spoke:

“I didn’t notice,” Green Sentai murmured.

Zenyatta waited for more… but there was none. He decided to try and tease more from him. “Didn’t notice what?”

Another wave of discord, colder, more raw than before. “I didn’t notice that he was stabbed,”  
said Green Sentai. 

“... The man in the alley?”

“Yeah,” Green Sentai sounded like he was trying to bite the words in his mouth. “All I focused on was the thief-- I didn’t even look at the other guy. If you hadn’t come along…”

“Green Sentai,” Zenyatta reached out to put his one hand on his shoulder. “I did come along. To focus on the hypothetical is unhealthy.”

“But… but he would’ve died. All because of me,” he choked. “Cause of my shitty tunnel vision on the bad guy. Ugh-- what’s wrong with me? I’m supposed to be a hero-- not a--”

“Stop.”

Green Sentai cut off his words and looked to the omnic sitting beside him. He had no mouth, no eyes, and no face; but there was some kind of emotion that he was getting from Zenyatta. What it was, he did not know.

“You made a mistake, as everyone in the world does. The worst you can do is let a _‘what if’_ haunt you because of it. _‘What if’s_ mean nothing if the only thing they do is cause you grief and hurt. The hypothetical is meant as a teaching tool and nothing else. Doing anything but living in the moment will only cause you unhappiness. 

“It is a blessing that no one was hurt so much that they could not recover. The best you can do to honour them is to learn. Learn from your mistakes, keep the lessons with you, and you will do better. You are still a hero, Green Sentai, you can only become a better one if you let lessons into your heart.”

With his lecture done, Zenyatta searched his neighbour’s face. There was not much to see past that helmet and pitch black visor, but the face is not the only window to the soul. Green Sentai’s body language spoke for him when he did not. He held himself in the barest sense, his shoulders slack and his head resting against the fence. Zenyatta would have thought his words useless and Green Sentai’s condition only worse… but he could feel the discord within the hero. It had shrunk and cowered away as Zenyatta had spoken and now was a harmless speck, barely visible.

Finally Green Sentai moved. A sigh came from within his helmet and he shook his head slowly-- but it was not in a negative way. The exhale had been of relief and the shake had been of disbelief. 

“You really are something special, Zenyatta.”

Zenyatta filed away the feeling of fluttering in his core to be diagnosed for problems...

… Later.

* * *

“This is as far as I can take you,” Green Sentai said.

“It’s already more than I could have asked for,” said Zenyatta. He stepped down from the hero’s arms. “Thank you, again, for today.”

Green Sentai chuckled. “I should be thanking you. Besides, what I did was _kind of_ kidnapping.”

“If that is what kidnapping entails, I would not mind being kidnapped again.”

Another chuckle from the hero, but quieter, shyer. “Yeah? I’ll remember that…”

Zenyatta tilted his head, charmed. “I will count on it.”

“Goodnight, Zenyatta.”

“Goodnight, Green Sentai.”

And then Green Sentai was gone. With a leap and a jump his green silhouette disappeared over the roof of a house. Zenyatta found himself waiting there, watching that spot, until the sun had fulfilled its threat of disappearing below the horizon. No green figure reappeared.

Zenyatta turned around and walked the rest of the way to the palace compound. It had only been a few hours at most since he had left, yet somehow he was surprised that nothing had changed in his absence. The rock gardens were untouched, the shutters were pulled closed, and still the trees sprinkled down their pink petals.

Strange that nothing had changed… perhaps it was Zenyatta who had instead.

Instead of going to his room, Zenyatta made his way to the main foyer. When he found no one there he moved to the large hall, and then the dining room, and then the gardens. All of the staff had gone home for the evening, but surely the person he was looking for was still about?

After Zenyatta had run out of areas to search, he knocked on Genji’s door. As he waited he lightly rocked back and forth on his feet, his visual receptors moving from one thing to the next as he tried to focus on anything but his eagerness. Such amazing things had happened to him today-- he wanted to tell Genji about them all. He wanted to sit with his friend and gesture exaggeratedly while he spoke of flying and of spending a sunset with the man who was slowly becoming his hero.

With no one answering the door, it seemed that Genji wasn’t home.

Zenyatta’s exuberance faltered-- but quickly leveled out again. He would be able to catch his friend in the morning. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he was so eager for the sun to rise.


	6. Episode 6: Be Careful What You Wish For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zenyatta goes to his first city council meeting since arriving... and it only gets worse from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dusts the grave dirt off of my pants. oh sorry didnt see u there..... i was just uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Zenyatta did not remember what he dreamt of, but he knew that it had been good. He awoke feeling warm and safe in the embrace of the Iris. Like a comfortable blanket draped across his shoulders, it lasted until he had finished getting ready for the day and entered the dining room. Hopefully when he meditated later he would be able to tap into his subconscious and find out what exactly he had dreamed about.

“Hey,” came a voice. Genji leaned against the island in the middle of the kitchen. There was a steaming mug in his hands. It was peach and had a pastel Pachimari pattern, the art worn and faded at the rim and handle. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Is it?” Zenyatta asked. “I was under the impression that I lived in your house.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not fancy,” Genji’s sleepy smile spread into a snarky grin. “What's it like having two hands again?” 

Zenyatta’s fans began to whir quietly in excitement and his smug levels went off the charts. “Oh I can't complain, it's pretty…. ‘handy’.”

Genji stared at him blankly. Surely if Zenyatta had a face, it would be split in half from the size of his grin. “I'm not awake enough for this,” said Genji. 

Zenyatta let himself chuckle. “That's a shame. Though I do wonder why you’re up so early.”

Genji’s mouth twitched and his free hand rubbed the back of his neck while he averted his gaze. “Oh, I don’t know… I guess I just felt like it today. Why? Can’t I wake up early?”

“Of course you can. In fact, I approve of it.”

“Cause it’s better for my health or something?”

“Yes, that _could_ be one of the reasons. It also _could_ be that it is because I get to see you before I leave for the day.”

Genji’s face had turned a pretty pink and was only getting brighter. “‘Could’... huh?”

Zenyatta hummed in agreement, his processors buzzing with the thrill of speaking to Genji. How was it that every conversation with him got Zenyatta’s fans going? How did it manage to make his chassis tight with excitement? It was only a simple conversation. Zenyatta had conversations every day.

“There was something that I wanted to tell you, Genji,” Zenyatta said. “About what happened to me yesterday.”

Genji’s eyes seemed to sparkle-- or was that a trick of the light? “Oh really? What happened?”

“I’ll have to tell you later this evening,” Zenyatta said sadly. “I have a meeting with your city’s council in half an hour. It’s likely that discussions will last late into the afternoon…”

“Is that all?” Genji asked. His confidence sounded practiced, as if he had said the same thing in front of a mirror several times. “I can drive you.”

“Oh, Genji, I can’t make you do that.”

“You aren’t making me _do_ anything. I want to. You can tell me your story on the way to the city hall.”

“I will have to tell the driver--”

“Already done,” Genji chirped. “I gave him the day off. Consider me your driver for the day.”

Zenyatta’s cooling systems turned on with a quiet ‘click’, audible only to himself. “You won’t just be driving me there… you’ll have to wait until all of the meetings are over to take me back here. Sitting in the car all day… it isn’t the most mentally stimulating.”

“What? You think I can’t do something because it’s boring?” Genji brought a faux offended hand to his chest. “I’m great at doing boring stuff. Just you wait, I’ll be the best at being boring. I’m the best at everything I do, you know. This won’t be any different.”

His dramatic over-exaggeration was successful and made Zenyatta laugh. Genji put down his mug of coffee; who needed caffeine when he had a living battery right here? He should look at his phone-- are there any marathons happening soon? Genji could run one right about now. Maybe two.

“If you are that confident at being boring, then I suppose I have no choice,” Zenyatta beamed. 

“That’s right,” Genji’s smile could have broken the limits of his face. “Prepare to be stuck with me.”

* * *

It was impossible for omnics to feel the same fatigue that humans did, but in that moment Zenyatta was sure he was as close as he could get to the real thing. His shoulders sunk with a big sigh and he let himself drift. Finger pads pressing together, he allocated his CPU away from his visual processors and used the extra power to meditate on the knowledge he had filed away today.

“I think today went very well.”

Zenyatta’s eyes clicked back on just in time to see one of the city councillors sit next to him. She huffed as her bottom hit the bench seat and then rubbed a hand over her lower back. She was giving Zenyatta a sympathetic smile, her one eye sparkling under the bright hallway lights.

“Hello, Ms Amari,” Zenyatta said. “You need not spare my feelings. It is better that I accept the truth of how the meeting went, so that next time I can do better.”

“Oh you did perfectly fine,” Ana said. “He’s always like that. In fact, he was much calmer than I originally expected. You do not know him as I do; today was a success.”

“Apologies, but I don’t think I can take that very seriously.”

“I do not blame you. Torbjorn can be… argumentative.”

“A polite term.”

Ana chuckled. “Don’t worry so much. I’ll chew his ear off for being so rude, before the next meeting. Hopefully that will cow him a little bit.”

Zenyatta sighed. “I will meditate on what happened today nonetheless. Learning from them is sometimes only thing we can do with negative experiences.”

“Maybe the only thing _you_ can do,” Ana said. “But I can lecture him in person.”

“I wish you luck.”

“And I you. Try not to let the meeting ruin the rest of your day, it's too beautiful outside to feel sour.”

And with those goodbyes, the two parted ways. Zenyatta patted the nonexistent dust from his robes and gathered himself. He was disappointed, but in no way was he giving up hope. This was only the beginning. 

Opening the front doors, Zenyatta’s opticals were forced to adjust to the bright sunlight that streamed in. Raising a hand above his eyes he caught sight of something (someone) that made his chassis tighten. Immediately almost all of the negativity from the meeting floated away. Genji hung out of the driver’s side window and waved both of his arms in dramatic ways fitting an airport runway. The smile on his face rivaled the sun itself and forced Zenyatta’s optics to perform diagnostics, for surely his comparison was only a metaphor. He waved back happily. 

“Do you wanna head over to the shopping district with me?” Genji called. “I saw a flyer for a sale on snacks at the convenience store. If we go now we can still catch it.”

Zenyatta thought that sounded like the best idea he had heard all day. 

As he took his first step down the stone stairs, Zenyatta had thought that he placed his foot wrong. He stumbled and jerked forwards before correcting too hard and falling backwards onto his butt. No, he hadn’t tripped. The ground was shaking. Violently. He tried to stabilize himself with his hands… and that was when he looked up.

With perfect timing, a hole opened up in the cement just outside the city hall. It swallowed a nearby car that wailed its security alarm all the way down. An arm reach out, and then another one, and Zenyatta watched them pull out a hulking mechanical body from down below. He would have thought it a giant omnic if it hadn’t turned and revealed the glass cockpit holding someone.

Zenyatta barely had enough time for his vocal box to gasp before the mech reached down and grabbed a car-- 

_The car with Genji in it._

“GENJI--!!” Zenyatta cried, his synth popping with the strain of high volume. 

But there was no answer. 

Zenyatta could not see the driver’s seat from where he was-- 

and then it was gone. In barely a second the car flew towards the nearest building, soaring  
through  
the  
air,  
and then crashing through the windows. Only its rear end was visible, its metal creaking and groaning as the wall settled its maw around the car.

Zenyatta could only stare.

“.. Genji…?”

The giant mech swung around to face Zenyatta. Their eyes met-- the person controlling the machine boring holes through Zenyatta’s cranium. “We meet again,” a distinctively female voice came through the machine’s speaker. Zenyatta knew that voice.

“You've been quite a nuisance, you know,” she went on. 

Zenyatta’s processors we're overwhelmed with information and emotions. Any words he might have thought of saying got caught in his vocal box. 

“Machines should mind their own business. If you'd just kept to yourself then I wouldn't have to do this.”

Zenyatta finally gathered enough CPU to form a coherent sentence. “Do… what?”

Her sickening feeling of discord and joy mixed together was strong enough to be felt by Zenyatta. All of his systems went on high alert and he got up in a shot, rolling to the side just fast enough to avoid the giant fist that came down and smashed the pavement. His omnic orbs. He had left his omnic orbs at home. 

“It'll be less painful if you stay still,” the woman's voice came through her giant mech’s speakers. “If you tin cans are capable of feeling pain in the first place.”

Zenyatta jumped just in time to miss the next attack. His base programming was screaming at him to get somewhere safe, to go inside the city hall where the machine could not reach him, but he knew that it would put the people inside in danger. He couldn't dodge forever… Zenyatta was caught between a rock and a hard place. 

The mechanical beast raised its arm once more. 

Then it tipped and groaned as a green blur rushed past, hitting it as it flew by. 

“Green Sentai…” Zenyatta said in awe. 

“You!” the woman's voice made the speaker pop as she screamed in rage. “How did you get here so fast?!” 

“I'm just that good,” Green Sentai said. 

She swung upwards and the hero leapt into the air. There he stayed suspended for an inhuman amount of time as he reached for his belt. The sound of metal against metal mixed with the crackle of electricity as Green Sentai unsheathed his sword. The blade glowed bright green, matching the lights on the bottom of his shoes. 

_“DRAGON SLASH!”_

Green Sentai swung twice, the ‘X’ shape of his attack staying behind in a bright green after image. Both attacks hit their mark and the mechanical beast jerked forwards, one arm going out to catch itself on the concrete. Sparks flew out of the giant gashes on its back. 

The only movement it could make was the twitches that came as the woman inside the cockpit violently pulled and pushed the controls. “CURSE YOU, GREEN SENTAI!!” she screeched.

Green Sentai landed on the ground with barely a sound. Without so much as a glance behind him he sprinted towards Zenyatta. A ‘thank you’ sat on the tip on Zenyatta’s metaphorical tongue, but before he could say anything a pair of strong hands clapped onto his shoulders. The firm grip turned him this way and that way and the hero’s head bobbed up and down as he inspected Zenyatta. 

“Are you okay?” Green Sentai asked, leaving no pause for Zenyatta to answer. “Did she hurt you? Am I on time?”

“I'm unhurt,” Zenyatta said. “Only scratched.”

“That's not ‘unhurt’,” Green Sentai grumbled, but Zenyatta could feel the tiny glow of happiness from within him. 

Their gazes only left each other as a loud groan of metal caught their attention. The giant robot had gotten a leg under itself, but the attempt at standing up had ended in failure and from inside came another scream of rage. 

“Let's get you out of here,” said Green Sentai. He tugged his friend's arm-- but Zenyatta did not budge. 

“We can't,” Zenyatta declared. 

“What? Why?” Green Sentai looked at him like he was out of his mind. “Are you worried about that lady? The other Sentai Gorangers will be here any second now and they can finish her off--” 

“No. It's my friend,” Zenyatta said. “We need to save him.”

Green Sentai stood in dumbfounded silence. “... What?” 

“My friend Genji, he was in that car,” Zenyatta explained. “Hurry-- before it's too late.”

He tried tugging Green Sentai towards the building, but this time it was the hero who did not budge. There was a moment of silence as he seemed to be looking for the right words, a moment long enough to make Zenyatta fidget with impatience. 

“What's wrong?” he asked. 

“We, uh, can't.”

“... Excuse me?”

“We can't,” Green Sentai said all at once. “You're top priority. We need to get you out of here.”

“Genji is still in there--” 

“The other Sentai Gorangers will be here soon, they’ll help him.”

“But _we_ are here right _now.”_

“He'll be fine--” 

“You do not know that for sure.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Zenyatta was forced to push down the discord and frustration that welled up inside of him. He gave himself a moment to reset his systems and take a metaphorical deep breath. 

“I'm going back,” Zenyatta said coldly. “With or without you.”

“You can't,” argued Green Sentai. “It's too dangerous.”

“I am quite aware of the dangers, and that is why I must go.”

“Don't--” Green Sentai grabbed Zenyatta’s elbow in a desperate attempt to keep him from harm. 

And as soon as Zenyatta felt that hand touch him he swung back and clocked Green Sentai in the face. 

It had been immediate, less than a second, and yet as they stared at each other an eternity went by. Green Sentai held his helmet as if his head was bouncing around inside of it. Zenyatta clenched and unclenched his fingers on the hand that had just been replaced, the hand that had punched Green Sentai. 

His hero, Green Sentai. 

“I believed in you,” murmured Zenyatta. “I thought you were good.”

_I thought that maybe I…_

“I'm so very disappointed,” he finished, and Green Sentai reeled back more violently than when he had been punched. 

“Zenyatta…” Green Sentai called weakly, but Zenyatta was already striding towards the building that Genji's car had been thrown into. 

The glass doors labeled ‘automatic’ did not open when he approached, nor when he waved his arms and tried again. However, they did open when Zenyatta grabbed the seam and pulled them apart. It was the same case for the second pair of glass doors inside. The elevator was shut off and so Zenyatta took a detour towards the fire exit stairs. 

Up and up and up he went. He did not think about the beast outside trying to kill him, he did not think about the superhero standing alone and holding his helmet, he did not think about the disappointment and grief gripping his CPU. He only thought of Genji and getting to him as fast as possible. 

Zenyatta could feel it now as he reached out with his energy in search for Genji's presence. He could feel a person just a few rooms away. The fire door creaked as Zenyatta heaved and pushed it open. Room after room after room he passed until the presence of a human was just behind the last door at the end of the hall. Zenyatta tried to open it but the knobs only rattled uselessly, locked from the inside. There wasn't any time to find the key. 

It wasn't often that Zenyatta used the strength given to him as an omnic. He preferred to keep a limiter on his physical abilities so that humans would not see him as a threat or as something superior to them.

Though that was the last thing on his mind as he bypassed his limiter and yanked the door knob from its door. 

But Genji was not in the room. There sat his car, sad and covered in dust from the wall, and completely devoid of a driver. 

Instead someone stood on the hood of the car. The sun that came through the hole in the wall shone off of White Sentai like a beacon. At the sound of Zenyatta bursting into the room she turned her attention from outside to him. 

“Zenyatta,” she greeted. 

“Where..?” Zenyatta said as he scanned for any sign of his friend. 

“The man in this car?” she guessed perfectly. “Do not worry, he is safe.”

“Where is he?” Zenyatta pushed the subject. 

“Red Sentai pulled him out; they should be landing somewhere safe right about now. All that's left is for you to go somewhere safe as well.”

“Is he hurt?” 

“I healed him, he is perfectly fine.”

All of the tension in Zenyatta’s joints and pistons released at once and he sagged his shoulders. Nonetheless there was a knot of unhappiness that sat heavily in his gut. Not being able to see Genji safe and sound in person left him feeling like he was standing on a cliff ledge, all of his systems that had been working in overtime now forced to slow down. It was just as Green Sentai said; Genji was rescued by the other Sentai Gorangers. 

He had been right… 

“Zenyatta,” White Sentai beckoned him from his reverie. “We must go. The stability of this building is unsafe.”

“Yes…” Zenyatta said. “Yes, you are right.”

* * *

For a second time, Zenyatta’s CPU diagnosis came back negative. In all technical terms he was as fit as a fiddle… but still somehow he had lost several hours of the day. From the car’s wreckage all the way back to the Shimada estate his memory banks were in poor quality. Maybe they were corrupted...

Perhaps he was just tired.

Exhaustion soaked his joints and pistons. Zenyatta only wanted to go back to his room and enter his charge cycle. He wanted to sleep off this terrible feeling of discord… even though he knew it was barely yet evening. For now he decided to ponder on his feelings and the events that had come to pass, then he would meditate on them.

Finally the sound he was waiting for came as the door clicked and opened. Genji stepped in, looking scratched and tired, but he was unharmed enough for joy to fill Zenyatta’s chassis to the brim. Zenyatta immediately stood and was walking to his friend’s side before he knew what he was doing.

“Genji, you’re safe,” Zenyatta said. 

“Yeah…” Genji replied weakly. Strangely he seemed like he couldn’t make eye contact with Zenyatta, and when he did he looked like a guilty puppy dog. 

“I’m so glad,” Zenyatta reached out to touch Genji-- but stopped short. Instead he settled for patting the dust off of his friend’s shirt. “What took you so long to come back?”

“I, ah,” Genji rubbed the back of his neck. “Had to give my statement to the police… that lady who was piloting the machine got away and I got sucked into the investigation.”

Zenyatta tilted his head to the side quizzically, “Genji… are you okay?”

“Huh?” Genji perked up. “What? Why?”

“You’re… acting strangely.”

“Oh. I’m just… tired. That’s all,” Genji looked to gather himself before making direct eye contact with his friend. “The question is are _you_ okay? That giant thing attacked you!”

“I’m unharmed. Thankfully before I got hurt, Gr--”

_Green Sentai saved me._

Zenyatta couldn’t bring himself to finish what he was saying.

“... Zenyatta?” Genji said nervously.

“Ah, it’s nothing,” Zenyatta waved it off. “I think I’m also very tired.”

Genji looked like he wanted to say something… but ended up shaking his head softly. “Yeah… Lots of stuff happened today.”

“I think everyone can agree on that,” Zenyatta chuckled weakly. 

Both seemed to run out of things to say, which in itself was said by the silence that awkwardly descended upon them. Genji had lost his ability to hold Zenyatta’s gaze once more, and fatigue seemed to weigh upon the omnic more than it had during the entire day.

“I think I’ll retire…” Zenyatta said.

“Oh. Okay…”

He hadn’t been thinking of it consciously, but now Zenyatta was somewhat disappointed that Genji didn’t ask him to stay.

“Goodnight, Genji,” Zenyatta said and turned around before he could get a reply.

So Genji was left alone, the spaciousness of the palace looming over him for the first time since he had moved in. If he dropped a pin onto the floor, would it be heard down all of the halls? If he looked up at the ceiling, would he be able to see it stretch ever outwards as it left Genji feeling tiny?

“Goodnight, Zenyatta,” Genji said to the empty room.


	7. Episode 7: Go Go Sentai Festival Day!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last episode, Green Sentai and Zenyatta had a devastating fight!
> 
> Will our hero be able to make it up to him? And will Zenyatta even forgive him?! 
> 
> Up next, on _Ryūjin Sentai Goranger Episode 7: Go Go Sentai Festival Day!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to everyone reading this who didn't give up on this fic even tho it's been ass-hundred years since I updated. Here's a chapter as your reward!!

“Zenyatta?”

Zenyatta turned around at the sound of his name. Standing in the doorway was Hanzo. He was holding an armful of papers and a clipboard, which was nothing out of the ordinary-- though the pinched look on his face was. 

“Greetings,” Zenyatta bowed politely. “Did you need something of me?” 

Hanzo paused before he spoke, seemingly searching for the right words. “Yes and no.”

Zenyatta hummed, “How contradictory.”

“It's simpler than it sounds,” he said. “Do you have a moment to talk?”

“Of course.”

“Then please, walk with me.”

There was only silence as they departed from the city hall together. Zenyatta found it reminiscent of the comfortable lulls in conversation between himself and his brothers back home. 

“It's about Genji,” Hanzo said, once they had walked a respectable distance away from any unwanted ears. His eyebrows were tight together. “Is he… disrespectful? Has he been acting strangely towards you?”

“ _‘Disrespectful’_..?” Zenyatta would have raised his eyebrows incredulously had he any. “Quite the contrary, Genji has been nothing but polite.”

To his surprise, Hanzo only frowned deeper. “Polite in a business manner..? Or in a friendly manner?”

“Friendly, of course.”

“Of course …” Hanzo repeated in a mumble. “I'll have a word with him.”

“Whatever for?” Zenyatta asked. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”

“My brother… has some unsavoury habits,” Hanzo explained. “Like flirting with anything that moves.”

Zenyatta’s fans began to whir fast enough for only himself to hear. Flirting? Had Genji been flirting with him? Was it possible? 

“Try not to take it personally. He is known for his promiscuous behaviour, it is not an attack on your character.”

It did not _feel_ like an attack-- or at least an attack in the offending sense. Perhaps an attack on Zenyatta’s excitable heart or on his budding affection for the green-haired man. It felt terrifying… and good-- exhilarating. 

Hanzo said that Genji was known for throwing around his affections… Was Zenyatta only one in a list of fleeting interests? The possibility dampened his budding hope. 

“Ah…” Zenyatta said weakly. “I will keep an eye out.”

“Please don't think any less of us because of it,” Hanzo said. “As long as you are a guest in our home, I'll make sure you're treated with the utmost respect.”

Zenyatta had a feeling that any protests would be shot down, so he nodded, if only to make his host happy. 

“I'll make it up to you,” Hanzo continued. “Today there will be an event at the park. It's open to everyone, but I have a front seat reservation.”

“Oh, you don't have to--” 

“It's one of the shows that those Sentai put on. I get invited as a member of city council, but I'm much too busy to see it.”

Zenyatta took the ticket that was held out to him. It was made of simple poster paper-- but as soon as it made contact with the sensors in the tip of his fingers, he was hit with the rush of realization.

_Green Sentai will be there._

“I'm sure you'll enjoy it,” Hanzo continued, oblivious to Zenyatta’s inner turmoil. “It's very popular-- and despite the large gathering of civilians, monsters won't attack. They already tried that and it didn't work out so well for them.”

“Thank you,” Zenyatta said automatically, his visual sensors unable to unlock themselves from the colourful and cheery ticket in his hand. 

“You're welcome.”

* * *

To say that the event was popular was a massive understatement on Hanzo's part. 

The community park’s theatre had been opened up and cleaned out in order to make room for the large variety of sound and light equipment. Masses of people, both human and omnic, reached from the very edge of the stage to the buildings on the other side of the road (which had been closed for the day for people to make the absolute most of the available space. Broken down tent equipment was sprinkled in the crowd here and there, telling of how saught after good seats were. 

Pyrotechnics kicked off the show at 1:00PM sharp and the Sentai emerged from the smoke in order: red, white, blue, yellow-- and finally, green. Impossibly, Zenyatta felt his chassis tighten. It already felt like an eternity since they had fought. Did the stage lights impair his sight from up high? What would he do if he saw Zenyatta, just sitting in the front row…? Would he show any outward signs of discomfort? Of anger? 

In the end, Green Sentai did nothing out of the order. He shouted his name when it was his turn, and he helped Red Sentai introduce the first of the entertainers that would be playing. Then he ran offstage just like he had onto it, and he was gone. 

The show continued as normal, or what Zenyatta assumed to be normal for one of these shows. To call it the Sentais’ event would be generous. After they finished the intro they did not show up again for the rest of the performances. 

There was no gradual sinking into the hot waters of audience hype. From the very first performance by a local DJ, the viewers’ energy was electric. When the cheery DJ and his large Bastion backup were done, then came a theatre group and their series of skits (mostly featuring a talented girl who must have been their star). 

It was during these that someone came and sat down next to Zenyatta. Funny, he didn't remember the seat next to him being empty. Perhaps it was the sheer size of the crowd overall that had distracted him from noticing. 

“Have I missed much?” asked the stranger, her voice well-spoken. 

“Only the first act,” Zenyatta answered. He made sure that his vocals were at a polite volume range so that she could hear but he wouldn't interrupt the plays. 

“And who was that?” 

“A local DJ. I believe he goes by ‘Lucio’.” 

“Ahh, shit,” she swore softly (but with feeling). “I was supposed to catch that.”

Zenyatta decided to take the conversation starter. “‘Supposed’ to? Will you be in trouble?”

The woman's mouth twitched into a smirk. “Not quite. I promised a coworker that I would record the show for her, since these are originally her seats.”

“She couldn't come herself?” 

“She _could,_ but I'm not sure she would last half the hour without getting her sick on something… or someone.”

“What a vivid picture you paint,” said Zenyatta. 

The woman's smirk spread into something wider. “Thank you,” she said-- and how had Zenyatta not noticed her Irish accent before then? 

The rest of the plays passed by without either of them starting up another conversation. In fact, with how enraptured Zenyatta was by the following performance (a love story told in dance starring a classical ballet dancer and her clumsy protégé), he had almost forgotten about his neighbour. 

The silence for the next performers was deafening compared to the uproar of cheer that had rocked the block only seconds before. With a heave and several more ho’s, the skinniest-looking clown pushed the flimsiest gurney onto the stage. A large white sheet hid something even larger underneath… something that looked like a person.

When the clown finally got the gurney to centre stage, he brushed off the dust from his dirty lab coat and rolled up his sleeves. He grabbed the sheet and yanked it to the side so that the crazy contraption underneath could be seen… or perhaps ‘contraption’ was too strong of a word to use for it. In reality a poorly painted cardboard box sat underneath the gurney with several strings of Christmas lights draped around it. 

The mad doctor-clown seemed to press a few of the buttons and then stood up straight, arms shooting into the air and every finger wriggling menacingly. The stage lights flashed and the clown laughed maniacally as smoke rolled in from backstage. Two grossly incandescent (obviously smothered in craft sparkles) lightning bolts descended from the rafters. 

Then the lights stopped and the laughing petered out into something awkward. The clown peeked under the sheet and scratched his head. He looked up to find the fake lightning bolts still swaying above him and he threw his hands out in frustration. Slipping off one of his slippers, he tossed it at the lightning and was swiftly punished when it fell and hit him on the head. A hesitant laugh swept over the crowd for a moment, but quickly went silent. 

The second lighting bolt fell next, this time hitting the body on the gurney. It bounced off harmlessly, and after half a second of awkward silence, the flashing lights and smoke started up again. The person under the sheet groaned and sat up slowly. The white sheet slipped off to reveal… 

Frankenstein’s monster, wearing a clown nose. 

The audience couldn't help but laugh at that, and so through the rest of the show they laughed freely at the antics of an evil scientist and his creation. 

“Do you know who those two are?” the woman beside Zenyatta asked. 

“I'm afraid I do not,” he said. 

“Hmm, I thought so. I'm sure the lack of excitement confused you,” she spoke the next part with the kind of straight face that Zenyatta couldn't imagine anyone else pulling off. Supposedly it was a perk of living in this city. “Those two blew up a bank a couple of months ago.”

Zenyatta honestly did not know where to start. A loud clatter on stage took his attention away as the two clowns chased each other around the gurney, thankfully giving Zenyatta an out as he processed this new information. 

Despite the duo’s apparent criminal record, the people lived them in the end. As they took their bows on stage the crowd was filled with cheers and applause. Zenyatta even spotted some people blinking away tears and rubbing their eyes. No one could blame them, as the ending hadn't been something anyone expected. It was doubtful that Zenyatta would see another show as indescribable as theirs.

Finally, a man large enough to rival Clown Frankenstein’s Monster stepped into the stage. Zenyatta wondered which tailor that the man had to go to in order to buy his size suits. Draped across his barrel chest was a silky blue ribbon that read ‘MAYOR’. 

“Thank you, everyone, for coming out today,” the mayor’s voice probably would have boomed even without the microphone. The crowd erupted in a cheerful affirmative. 

“I must say that I was sceptical about those two at first,” he referred to the criminal clowns duo. “But I suppose that they really have changed. Let's all give one more ‘thank you’ to them and the rest of our very talented performers!”

The next uproar lasted for almost half a minute and it wasn't until the mayor raised his hand that it began to die down. “It's thanks to the Sentai Gorangers that we could fund the show this year. If it wasn't for them, the park theatre wouldn't even be standing.” The mayor went on to make his speeches and ended off with a list of sponsors and an approximate number that the ‘entry by donation’ had raised. 

“And finally, without further ado, your Ryūjin Sentai Gorangers!” the mayor waved out his arm as he stepped away. The audience screamed as the five figures walked on stage and waved. The other four stood by while Red Sentai walked up to the microphone. 

“Thank you, Mayor Reinhardt,” she said. “But truly, none of this would have happened if it weren't for you, the audience. Your support drives us to work harder everyday and keep the city safe.”

Zenyatta could understand why Red Sentai was the leader of their group. The speech that she gave was inspiring and touched each person’s heart within a block. Her voice was clear and confident as she spoke and she kept her back straight. There was almost a visible aura about her as she oozed courage. Surely even the coldest of hearts would trust her after such a speech. 

“Thank you, everyone, for coming out today!” Red Sentai finished off, followed by a chorus as the other Sentai cheer in agreement and pump their fists before taking their respective poses. The audience roars with applause loud enough to shake the entire block and people around Zenyatta begin to stand up and leave. 

Like every other public event in the world, the exit rush was hellish. Zenyatta barely had enough time to say goodbye to his little-while friend before they both were swept up as people pushed and shoved by. Slipping out of the aisle was only worse as there were no seats to separate anyone. 

Something grabbed his wrist. 

Zenyatta’s core self-preservation program had him planting his feet in the ground and resisting as the unknown person pulled him, but somehow even his omnic strength wasn't enough. With another firm yank, Zenyatta was whisked behind the stage and into the maze of sound equipment. Before he could finish processing something to say, the stranger let go of him. 

Green Sentai pulled back the hood of his black hoodie, and Zenyatta was struck by the sharp pain that came with cocktails of dread and joy. 

“Green Sentai…” Zenyatta’s voice sounded hollow even to himself. 

Green Sentai raised a hand, “You don't… You don't have to say anything. I'm sorry for dragging you back here but I just had to-- I had to talk to you.”

The hero was obviously trying to find the best words to say and it was only half out of politeness that Zenyatta stayed silent to let him think. Truly, Zenyatta himself was having a difficult time just gathering the courage to _think_ of saying something. 

“I was wrong,” Green Sentai sounds worlds different than the confident, silly hero that Zenyatta has come to know. “I shouldn't have acted like that to you…”

“No, you were right,” Zenyatta wondered if it was possible for words to physically damage his vocal chords with how painful they were. “My friend was rescued by the other Gorangers. I was being foolish, and--”

“No. It doesn't matter that he was saved,” Green Sentai said vehemently. 

“Are we… having the same conversation?”

“Yes… No… I don't know--” Green Sentai shook his head. “The _point_ is that he's your friend, he _matters_ to you. We were both there and you were right that we could go in there and save him but--” Green Sentai seemed to choke. 

Had anyone else ever seen the hero like this;open and vulnerable? Had Green Sentai ever bared himself for anyone but Zenyatta? The question made the sensors in his chassis malfunction and tell him that it was being squeezed in a vice. 

“I was selfish. I wanted you to be safe, it's like I had tunnel vision and the only thing I could focus on was getting you somewhere else. Thinking of what could have happened to you… it terrified me like nothing else.”

“Green Sentai…” Zenyatta murmured under his breath. The sound seemed to make the Sentai stand taller. 

“But I realized that you must have felt the exact same thing… except the person you were worried about was in even more danger. After we fought… I couldn't do anything. I couldn't eat or sleep, all I kept thinking about was the way you sounded.”

Green Sentai, with the speed that only a super hero could have, grabbed Zenyatta’s hands and clasped them together. Zenyatta was forced to reroute some of his CPU or else he might short out. He could feel the warmth of Green Sentai’s hands even through his gloves… 

“I never want to hurt you like that again. My duty as a superhero demands that I keep you from getting hurt… but if that means that your _feelings_ are hurt… I'd rather make you happy.”

Green Sentai stared at their hands as if he couldn't believe Zenyatta hadn't pulled away yet. “I've come to find that I… care about you. More than I care about the average citizen. I hope that you'll consider forgiving me, and--” 

“I forgive you,” Zenyatta blurted out. 

As Green Sentai’s head shot up, Zenyatta could feel the dumbfounded expression behind the helmet visor. “I, uh, didn't expect you to… You don't have to feel pressured to forgive me right _now._ I can wait if you need some time…”

“I meant it,” Zenyatta said, and he found that he did. “You were just trying to look out for my safety, and I took out my anxieties on you. To hear you say these things… means the world to me.”

“But I-- your friend could have been hurt. It would have been my--” 

“But he is not hurt. He is safe. If we dwell on possibilities, we'll lose sight of the present. I forgive you, not because I feel pressured to, but because…” Zenyatta felt his core heat up by 1.2°. “Because I've found myself caring about you, too.”

The positive energy that came from Green Sentai at the moment was almost strong enough to knock Zenyatta over. It was blinding, it threatened to overcharge his batteries as if he had set foot on the sun. It was absolutely beautiful. Zenyatta had never seen an aura so vivid before, not even from one of his brothers or sisters. 

He was so enraptured by it that he hadn't noticed himself leaning closer Green Sentai. Zenyatta was about to pull back and apologize-- but then he noticed how Green Sentai was gravitating towards him as well. What was this feeling? And did Green Sentai feel the same--? 

A loud chime startled both parties from the moment as Green Sentai’s bracers began to glow. Zenyatta could only catch a big ‘ALERT’ as Green Sentai brought it up to look at it. He barely gave it a glance before dismissing the alarm. 

But by then the moment was gone. 

Green Sentai wavered on his feet. He looked as if he wanted to do anything else but respond to the call, but Zenyatta knew already what must be done. 

“You should answer that,” Zenyatta said quietly. “The people need you.”

The hero seemed to slump with a mixture of disappointment and relief, unburdened with the choice between his duty and… whatever Zenyatta was. 

“You're one of the people,” Green Sentai said weakly. 

“I'll still be here,” Zenyatta stroked a thumb across their clasped hands, which squeezed back as an answer. 

“I'll…” Green Sentai mumbled. “I'll be back.”

“I know you will.”

They ripped off the bandaid and separated. As Green Sentai took to the rooftops, Zenyatta looked at his hands. Empty. 

It hit him then, but somehow he had already known. The realization was like coming home. 

Zenyatta loved Green Sentai.

* * *

Genji wasn't around when Zenyatta got home. His heart sunk, but it was only a tiny ripple in the great lake that was his current good mood. No, great mood. Amazing mood. Was there a word in the English language that could possibly describe the way he was feeling? 

Zenyatta wanted to tell his friend. It had been happening frequently lately; a good thing (sometimes even a mediocre thing or a bad thing) would happen, and Zenyatta would be overwhelmed with the urge to tell his friend about it. It was addicting, and he had no urge to kick it. 

Imagining it flooded Zenyatta with golden energy. He could see the way Genji's eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled, highlighted by his perfect eyeliner. Genji initiated physical contact all the time; he would probably grab Zenyatta and pull him in for a hug. Zenyatta loved his hugs, and loved how warm he--

Oh. 

_Oh._

Perfectly timed, Genji’s message tone pinged on Zenyatta’s phone and startled him. He fished it out of his robes and looked at the screen. 

_1:43 PM - Zenyatta: Genji :) I want to talk to you, when will you be coming home?_

_2:04 - Genji: arrrggg sorry zen, im still at work >:/ what is it? we can talk now, im on break_

Apprehension filled Zenyatta. He couldn't tell Genji the truth _now…_

_2:05 - Zenyatta: Oh it wasn't anything specific. I just wanted to know how you were doing. You've been at work a lot lately._

_2:05 - Genji: ugh ikr???? boss is on my ass like it's grass and he's gonna mow it_

Zenyatta chuckled at his good friend's vivid imagery, but it quickly petered off. Guilt gnawed at his good mood. 

How could he confess his love for Green Sentai… when he loved Genji too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative episode name: cameos galore!
> 
> And just in case you didn't know, this show is DEFINITELY the kind where the bad guys come back later as good guys. Junkrat and Roadhog were definitely a criminal pair, but after last season they became good guys and decided to make it big as a comedy duo. 
> 
> They were probably from season 2. Season 1's bad guys were someone else- probably reaper and soldier 76. Like, soldier 76 started the Gorangers to fight the Reaper, but then it turned out that they had a past! Soldier76 probably orders the sentai to do something morally grey or black in order to make a blow against the reaper, but they end up breaking away and becoming their own team. Then they have a big season finale showdown and soldier76 and reaper get past their differences to work together and save the city with our heroes.
> 
> I think way too much about things I'm never going to write

**Author's Note:**

> woo another multichap!! *cracks knuckles* time to die-- i mean get back to writing regularly every week. ill update around sundays probably, not really the most solid deadline lol.
> 
> if u wanna find me on other sites this is my [tumlr](http://chohouse.tumblr.com/) and this is my [twitter!](https://twitter.com/chohouse)


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